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| Pablo Picasso Glasses and fruit 1908 oil on panel Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
Some years ago I heard a story about a wealthy collector who decided to put a Picasso painting up for auction. He took it to the auction house and was told by the experts that they would not take it because they thought it was a fake. The man was outraged, and after a few rude comments about the credentials of the auction-house experts he took the painting directly to Picasso himself. He explained the problem to Picasso and asked him to verify it as truly one of his pictures. Picasso looked at the painting carefully, and then came back to the collector.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'They are right. It is a fake.'
'But that can't be!' gasped the man, 'I bought it directly from you fifteen years ago!'
'Well,' said Picasso, 'I can make fake Picassos just as well as anyone else.'
– Joel Fisher, from an essay called Judgement and Purpose (1987) reprinted in the volume Failure (2010) from the series Documents of Contemporary Art published by Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press
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| Carl Holsøe Woman with fruit bowl ca. 1900-1910 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Henri Matisse The Yellow Flowers 1902 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Albert Baertsoen Ghent Evening 1903 oil on canvas Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| André Derain Church at Chatou 1909 oil on panel Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Maurice de Vlaminck Bunch of Flowers ca. 1909 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Jean-Louis Forain Dancers in pink ca. 1905 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Raoul Dufy Fishmarket, Marseilles ca. 1903 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Henri Manguin The Prints 1905 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec The opera Messalina at Bordeaux ca. 1900-1901 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Maximilien Luce Bessy, Yonne, the Shaded Path 1905 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Georges Braques Le Park at Carrières-Saint-Denis 1909 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Maurice Prendergast Beach at St Malo 1907 canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Emil Nolde Red Flowers 1906 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
I am grateful to Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza for the excellent reproductions.