GAGOSIAN AND QATARI ROYAL FAMILY REACH TEMPORARY AGREEMENT OVER $100 MILLION PICASSO BUST
After filing court documents claiming that he—and not Qatar’s royal family—is the owner of Picasso’s plaster Bust of a Woman, 1931, dealer Larry Gagosian has reached a temporary agreement with Pelham Holdings, the Qatari family’s agent, that the statue will go to Gagosian Gallery until the squabble is adjudicated, according to Robin Pogrebin in the New York Times. The bust is currently on display in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition of Picasso sculptures and listed as on loan from a private collection “courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.”
The two parties both claim that they are the proper owners of the bust and it was sold to them by a daughter of Picasso, Maya Widmaier-Picasso. Gagosian claimed in a legal action filed last month in federal court in Manhattan against Pelham Holdings that he bought the sculpture in May 2015 for about $106 million from Widmaier-Picasso, and then sold it to an undisclosed New York collector. Meanwhile an agent for Pelham Holdings has maintained in its own court documents that it had an agreement with Widmaier-Picasso to buy the work in November 2014 for about $42 million.
Pelham says it bought the bust on behalf of Sheik Jassim bin Abdulaziz al-Thani, who is married to Sheika al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chairwoman of the Qatar Museums Authority. Prior to completion of the sale though, a lawyer for Widmaier-Picasso asked, in April 2015, that the transaction with the royal family be canceled, because “Widmaier-Picasso lacked mental capacity” to agree to the transaction “due to purported medical issues,” according to Pelham’s documents. Pelham then sued Widmaier-Picasso to enforce the original sale and obtained a court order to prevent her from moving the sculpture, an injunction that has been challenged and is under appeal. Widmaier-Picasso has also countersued.
Gagosian maintains that the title for the work passed to him after his third payment to Widmaier-Picasso. Jo Becker Laird, a lawyer for the owner of Pelham Holdings, has said that Gagosian can hold the sculpture but that if for any reason Gagosian wants to move the bust, they need to notify the other side before doing so.
