A Picasso Vanished in 1961. The Guggenheim Now Wants It Back
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has filed suit in New York State Supreme Court seeking the return of Pablo Picasso’s “Femme dans un fauteuil” (1918), which disappeared on February 6, 1961, while on loan to the University of Pittsburgh’s Students Union. The 13.5-by-10.5-inch oil painting resurfaced after a Christie’s researcher alerted the museum in July 2023 while reviewing it for a private-sale consignment, and the Guggenheim demanded its return in August 2023; the work has remained at Christie’s since. The lawsuit alleges Massachusetts residents Lawrence Jay Handler and Wendy Cohen Handler unlawfully possess the painting, which they bought from Beadleston Fine Art in Manhattan in 1999, nearly 40 years after the theft. Picasso made the work near Biarritz while honeymooning with his first wife Olga Khokhlova, and Solomon R. Guggenheim acquired it from London’s Gallery Zwemmer in 1936; how it reached Beadleston is unclear.
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This story was covered in Digital Biennales and Restitution Wars Escalate