une succession de picasso museu es bordel.es joan Miro 86 palma de mallorca
LE CRASH D'UNE PICASSO GRISE
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A Family Feud Over a Picasso (On Wheels); A New Car's Logo Divides The Heirs of a Lucrative Name

Children of the rich, famous and powerful rarely have it easy. But Picasso's four children suffered more than most. The great artist was not, in his later years, a great father. He routinely ill-treated his one legitimate son, and he neglected the son and two daughters he had outside of marriage. Still, when he died in 1973, they inherited some of the fruits of his talent and, in three cases, his name.

But like many an enviable legacy, it became a poisoned chalice. Picasso's heirs, including his widow, Jacqueline Roque, squabbled for six years over distribution of thousands of paintings, sculptures and drawings worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They then differed over how to exercise their communal right to exploit the Picasso name commercially until a French court settled the issue in 1989.

Now a new chapter in the saga is unfolding. Last year Claude Picasso, the artist's surviving son and the court-appointed administrator of the Picasso estate, sold the Picasso name and signature to PSA Peugeot-Citroen for use by the French automaker. And this fall, a family compact, the Citroen Xsara Picasso, will be put on the European market. But Marina Picasso, the artist's granddaughter and Claude's niece, has challenged the deal in court.

''I cannot tolerate that the name of my grandfather and of my father be used to sell something as banal as a car,'' she told a French newspaper in January, although the lawsuit was only filed last month. ''He was a genius who is now being exploited outrageously. His name, his very soul, should not be used for any ends other than his art.''

Her position seems duly principled, but it is more complicated. She has not filed to reverse the sale of the Picasso trademark to PSA Peugeot-Citroen, but rather to challenge a hefty commission paid to a consulting company, Welcome, which is owned by her cousin, Olivier Widmaier-Picasso, and has its offices in the same building on the elegant Place Vendome as Claude's Picasso Administration.

(A quick reminder of the cast of characters may be in order. From his marriage to Olga Koklova, Picasso had one son, Paolo, who died in 1975 and who himself had three children from two marriages: Pablito, who died in 1973, Marina and Bernard. With his mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso had a daughter, Maya, whose son, Olivier, has combined his father's and his grandfather's names. Finally, with Francoise Gilot, Picasso had two children, Claude and Paloma.)

Quality Products, Like Fine Cognac

Claude Picasso refused repeated requests for an interview, but his lawyer, Jean-Jacques Neuer, said that four of the five heirs -- Claude, Paloma, Maya and Bernard -- have backed the Citroen deal and that, in any case, as sole legal administrator of the estate, Claude had a right to make the sale on his own, sharing the profits with his fellow heirs.

For Claude, Mr. Neuer said, the Citroen contract is of particular significance, not only because it is the family's most valuable single merchandising agreement to date, but also because it underlines the estate's strategy of associating the Picasso name with high-quality products. Next in line, apparently, are a Cognac Hennessy Picasso and a ST Dupont Picasso cigarette lighter.

Mr. Neuer said that given the widespread illegal use of the Picasso name for everything from T-shirts, coffee mugs and scarves to umbrellas, carpets, and even restaurants, the estate believed that the best way of fighting piracy was for the family to make use of the name in a range of products.

''If we don't use it, someone else will,'' he said.

This, for example, is why the Picasso estate licensed Steve Wynn to open a Picasso Restaurant in his Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. ''It is a fine restaurant which displays original works by Picasso,'' Claudia Andrieu, the estate's in-house counsel, explained. ''It's very different from the unauthorized Picasso cafes and restaurants that can be found all over the world.''

The mind-boggling problem of controlling and managing the use of the Picasso name and images might even be added to the burdens of being a Picasso heir.

A Link, of Sorts, Between 2 Geniuses

Ms. Andrieu said that annually the estate received thousands of requests for authorization to use Picasso images for, say, postcards and books, and most of these were routinely approved.

It has also signed some 20 licensing contracts for specific exhibition-related objects, like scarves or T-shirts, although it required several lengthy lawsuits to halt illegal manufacture and sale of Picasso objects in the United States.

Even though the estate goes to court some 20 times a year to fight commercial abuses, misappropriation of the Picasso trademark is the main headache.

A Family Feud Over a Picasso (On Wheels); A New Car's Logo Divides The Heirs of a Lucrative Nam

Children of the rich, famous and powerful rarely have it easy. But Picasso's four children suffered more than most. The great artist was not, in his later years, a great father. He routinely ill-treated his one legitimate son, and he neglected the son and two daughters he had outside of marriage. Still, when he died in 1973, they inherited some of the fruits of his talent and, in three cases, his name.

But like many an enviable legacy, it became a poisoned chalice. Picasso's heirs, including his widow, Jacqueline Roque, squabbled for six years over distribution of thousands of paintings, sculptures and drawings worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They then differed over how to exercise their communal right to exploit the Picasso name commercially until a French court settled the issue in 1989.

Now a new chapter in the saga is unfolding. Last year Claude Picasso, the artist's surviving son and the court-appointed administrator of the Picasso estate, sold the Picasso name and signature to PSA for use by the French automaker. And this fall, a family compact, the Citroen Xsara Picasso, will be put on the European market. But Marina Picasso, the artist's granddaughter and Claude's niece, has challenged the deal in court.

''I cannot tolerate that the name of my grandfather and of my father be used to sell something as banal as a car,'' she told a French newspaper in January, although the lawsuit was only filed last month. ''He was a genius who is now being exploited outrageously. His name, his very soul, should not be used for any ends other than his art.''

Her position seems duly principled, but it is more complicated. She has not filed to reverse the sale of the Picasso trademark to PSA but rather to challenge a hefty commission paid to a consulting company, Welcome, which is owned by her cousin, Olivier Widmaier, and has its offices in the same building on the elegant Place Vendome as Claude's Picasso Administration.

(A quick reminder of the cast of characters may be in order. From his marriage to Olga Koklova, Picasso had one son, Paolo, who died in 1975 and who himself had three children from two marriages: Pablito, who died in 1973, Marina and Bernard. With his mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso had a daughter, Maya, whose son, Olivier, has combined his father's and his grandfather's names. Finally, with Francoise Gilot, Picasso had two children, Claude and Paloma.)

Quality Products, Like Fine Cognac

Claude Picasso refused repeated requests for an interview, but his lawyer, Jean-Jacques Neuer, said that four of the five heirs -- Claude, Paloma, Maya and Bernard -- have backed the Citroen deal and that, in any case, as sole legal administrator of the estate, Claude had a right to make the sale on his own, sharing the profits with his fellow heirs.

For Claude, Mr. Neuer said, the PSA contract is of particular significance, not only because it is the family's most valuable single merchandising agreement to date, but also because it underlines the estate's strategy of associating the Picasso name with high-quality products. Next in line, apparently, are a Cognac Hennessy Picasso and a ST Dupont Picasso cigarette lighter.

Mr. Neuer said that given the widespread illegal use of the Picasso name for everything from T-shirts, coffee mugs and scarves to umbrellas, carpets, and even restaurants, the estate believed that the best way of fighting piracy was for the family to make use of the name in a range of products.

''If we don't use it, someone else will,'' he said.

This, for example, is why the Picasso estate licensed Steve Wynn to open a Picasso Restaurant in his Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. ''It is a fine restaurant which displays original works by Picasso,'' Claudia Andrieu, the estate's in-house counsel, explained. ''It's very different from the unauthorized Picasso cafes and restaurants that can be found all over the world.''

The mind-boggling problem of controlling and managing the use of the Picasso name and images might even be added to the burdens of being a Picasso heir.

A Link, of Sorts, Between 2 Geniuses

Ms. Andrieu said that annually the estate received thousands of requests for authorization to use Picasso images for, say, postcards and books, and most of these were routinely approved.

It has also signed some 20 licensing contracts for specific exhibition-related objects, like scarves or T-shirts, although it required several lengthy lawsuits to halt illegal manufacture and sale of Picasso objects in the United States.

Even though the estate goes to court some 20 times a year to fight commercial abuses, misappropriation of the Picasso trademark is the main headache.

A Family Feud Over a Picasso

''Every year there are at least 200 attempts by people to claim the Picasso trademark without authorization,'' Ms. Andrieu explained. ''Add to that, there are 42 different classes of trademarks for names and logos. There's a Spanish company that has filed both the name and the logo in 30 classes, so that's 60 separate disputes. I'd say that at present, around 800 of the 1,043 registered trademarks using the Picasso name are unauthorized.''

In contrast, when exploitation of the Picasso name is licensed to reputable companies, not only is payment assured, the companies also have an interest in defending the trademark in their commercial area. The value of the deal with PSA is thought to be several million dollars, but the company seems happy. ''It is a totally justified use of the name because it links the genius of Pablo Picasso with the inventive and creative genius of Andre PSA,'' the founder of the automaker, a company spokesman said.

Thus, while the Picasso estate fights to halt piracy, the heirs have no objection in principle to profiting from the artist's name.

Paloma Picasso, estimated this month by The Sunday Times of London to be worth $600 million, has long used her -- or is it her father's? -- name to market perfume and jewelry.

In 1979 Marina Picasso also sold reproduction rights to some 1,000 works by Picasso that she then owned. Short of selling part of their collections, the Picasso name remains the family's most marketable asset.

The downside of this renown is that Picasso's heirs cannot avoid embarrassing publicity every time they fall out with one another. The photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, for example, was stirred by Le Monde's report on the Picasso car to write a letter of protest to Claude Picasso, bemoaning a lack of respect for ''one of the great painters, a genius.''

For other Parisians, though, the surrealism is not that there will soon be a Picasso car with a $16,000 price tag; it is that, of all people, Picasso should be associated with a family car.

Steve Wynn can afford his expensive elbows

Posted Dec 1st 2006 10:00AM by Maura McCormack
Filed under: Rich in America

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