Jean Cocteau: France in uproar over museum ‘fakes’

Experts clash over the authenticity of dozens of works by the celebrated poet and artist Engraved on the tombstone of Jean Cocteau – poet, painter, film-maker and dramatist – in the 12th-century Chapelle Sainte-Blaise-des-Simples is the epitaph: I remain with you. With more than 50 books, 24 plays and musicals, a dozen films, and countless designs, paintings, drawings, ceramics, varied works of art and even a postage stamp, much of the prolific French artist’s oeuvre is indeed still with us. The only problem, it has been alleged, is that not all of it is his. A spectacular row between key figures responsible for a new Cocteau museum in the south of France has prompted claims that some of the works to be displayed are fakes, leading to rancorous lawsuits and at least one alleged sacking. When it opens in November, the museum at Menton, near Monaco – the town that was a holiday retreat of both Winston Churchill and author Katherine Mansfield – hopes to become the biggest single collection of Cocteau works. Severin Wunderman, a Belgian-born American art collector, philanthropist, Holocaust survivor and renowned watchmaker, donated 1,800 of the artist’s works to the town before his death in 2008 and officials decided to construct a building to house them. First, however, the collection – made up of 623 designs, 425 photographs, 177 manuscripts, 70 posters, 51 prints as well as sculptures, ceramics, glass works and tapestries – had to be verified. Cocteau, like his friend and contemporary Pablo Picasso, has long been a favourite with forgers. Art expert Annie Guédras, who was designated by Cocteau’s heirs as the only person legally authorised to “evaluate, authenticate and index” his paintings and drawings, examined the Wunderman collection. She concluded that dozens of works were copies or fakes. However, the Cocteau committee, set up to manage the artist’s estate, headed by Pierre Bergé – co-owner of Le Monde and partner of the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent – disagreed. Bergé, a friend of Cocteau’s companion Edouard Dermit, was given moral rights to the artist’s work when Dermit died in 1995. He has been an active custodian of Cocteau’s legacy and put around €1.5m (£1.3m) of his own money into a €3.5m five-year restoration of the artist’s home at Milly-la-Forêt, south of Paris, where Cocteau lived from 1947 until his death in 1963, and where he produced some of his most impressive work. The Chapelle Sainte-Blaise-des-Simples, where Cocteau is buried, is nearby. Bergé called in another art expert, a decision that infuriated Guédras, who accused him of calling into question her professional judgment as well as breaking the legal agreement designating her as the only person authorised to authenticate Cocteau’s work. She promptly resigned from the Cocteau committee and sued. Last year she won unspecified damages equivalent to three years’ salary, a decision that Bergé immediately took to appeal. The row did not stop there. When Hugues de la Touche, curator of Menton’s museums, agreed with Guédras’s defence and declared the Wunderman collection to be of “dubious quality” and “not worthy of an establishment labelled an official French museum”, he claims he lost his job. He too is taking legal action. Now it appears Guédras and de la Touche may have been at least partly right. In February a third examination of the Wunderman collection – by two new art experts – concluded that at least 35 works were either fakes or copies. “Our analysis and that of Annie Guédras are reasonably convergent,” said one of the experts. It has now been agreed that the contested works will not go on display in the new museum. It has also been suggested that the row was caused by the Cocteau committee’s reluctance to provoke a confrontation with the notoriously temperamental Wunderman. In 1995 the Los Angeles Times wrote of the reclusive millionaire: “Not content with shouting and breaking things, he has already thrown more than one portable telephone from the window of his Rolls Royce.” The French newspaper Libération said Bergé and the committee may have been anxious to avoid losing Wunderman’s legacy by suggesting the collection included forgeries. “Perhaps it was a case of showing a little tolerance so that Wunderman did not take back part of his legacy… even if it meant closing eyes to several doubtful works at least for a little while,” it wrote. Menton, where the Jean Cocteau-Severin Wunderman museum is nearing completion, adopted Cocteau as an honorary citizen after he redecorated the local marriage hall with a spectacular series of paintings, ceramics and tapestries. The building will replace an existing Cocteau museum and is expected to draw 100,000 visitors a year. Jean Cocteau France Europe Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.