YOUR OWN PERSONAL PICASSO PRINT PERSONALITY PROFILE (PPPPP)

In order to understand individual variations in taste regarding Picasso and, specifically, Picasso’s prints, the correlations between these preferences and other cultural predispositions in fine art and, for starters, music, and, ultimately, in order to better understand the human mind, I’ve been toying with the idea of compiling a Personal Picasso Print Personality Profile (PPPPP) for each of you readers who have waded this far down into this tripe. It would of course require that you respond to that dreaded document, the questionnaire, but, to make it easy on you, I’d accept answers to any of the questions you chose to answer even if you didn’t complete the entire questionnaire. How’s that? I’m also open to suggestions of other questions. […]

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Fake Picassos at Costco (Reported in the NY Times)

The following article was brought to my attention by Richard with an attached message, “for your amusement”: It’s Costco, but Is It Picasso? Art Sale in Doubt By CAROL KINO From diamonds to dog food to Dom Pérignon Champagne, Costco is known as an astute marketer of high and low. Recently, it even ventured into the rarefied world of Picasso, selling a crayon drawing at its Web site for a bargain $39,999.99. The buyer, Louis Knickerbocker, a meat distributor from Newport Beach, Calif., had never fancied himself a big-league collector. But as he was cruising to work in his sport utility vehicle one day, a radio news report about the Costco offering roused him to action. Mr. Knickerbocker, 39, quickly

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CRUISE SHIP ART AUCTIONS

Dear Kobi, While on a cruise ship last month we purchased what was represented as an original Picasso lithograph signed by Picasso. We asked to see a Picasso catalogue while on the ship, but the auctioneer did not have one. We purchased a Dali piece that was listed in the Dali catalogue and the auctioneer seemed genuine, so we decided to also purchase Le Clown, since their art firm had a written guarantee. I forgot about looking in a Picasso catalog until this week. When I couldn’t find the piece I contacted the art wholesaler and was told the piece was printed after a drawing donated to the Paris Peace Movement in 1968 and published the same year by Yamat

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The dual dangers of overpaying and of buying online

Dear Kobi, the article i read today [from your manuscript] was talking about the dangers of buying online and also the danger of paying too much for a work from a gallery because of overheads etc… this is a question i have asked myself for a while……which way to jump? take a risk online and buy hopefully a real and fair priced work or have a bit more piece of mind and buy from a brick and mortar gallery and in more cases than not pay too much for the work as they have great expenses like rent, staff, and their endless champagne and canapé parties.

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Fakes and fake letters of authenticity

Dear Kobi — I appreciated your tales from Chapter 13 of the wonderful variety and diversity of Picasso fakes and fake letters of authenticity. I assisted in the publicity regarding a bad guy named ABC, whom I exposed on my website www.milwaukeeworld.com for foisting some fake Picassos on the public. I was able to examine the fakes and the fake certificates of authenticity. You can learn a lot from forgeries, as you obviously know. ABC did some time, but appears to be active in Florida. I have heard from many, many people who have either 1.) bought a fake and wish they had gone to my website first, or 2.) went to my website first and did not buy the

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Aesthetics: Nature vs. Nurture

Dear Kobi, That was a very windy discussion on the merits of Art, especially the Picasso still life [in reference to the discussion of Le Guéridon (The Pedestal Table) in Chapter 3, “The Customer is Always ________ (Fill in the blank)” and why Doron didn’t get off to it]. There are two schools of thought in art appreciation and analysis. One states that art is created and the creator is the real artist and innovator. We merely analyze and appreciate it to the best of our abilities. The more we know, the greater is our experience; the more brilliant we are, the more original we are, or the greater our intellectual or aesthetic ability is, then the more we appreciate

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HUMAN PORTRAITURE

The appeal of animal portraiture is probably deeply linked to that of human portraiture. Yet the reasons underlying the appeal of both types of portraiture have received scant attention. The psychological appeal of human portraiture is poorly understood, and has also rarely been tackled by museum exhibits or art history. To understand the emotional appeal of animals in art, we probably ought to know what it is about human portraiture that we find so attractive, even spellbinding? Are we not accosted by 5, 50 or even 500 faces each day of our lives? Why does it matter on a given day if we see several more faces represented on canvas? It would seem that we measure the greatness of a

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PRINTS vs. PAINTINGS

Just like every significant museum with an interest in modern European art, even a collector as richly endowed as Norton Simon hoarded Picasso prints (and Rembrandts and Goyas) like they were going out of style. He acquired 710 Picasso prints but only five Picasso paintings. (Print dealers such as ourselves can only admire that ratio!) Presumably, he didn’t do it because, unlike many print collectors, prints were the only Picassos he could afford, but rather because the print medium, especially in the hands of Picasso, the greatest print innovator of all time, gave rise to unique and breathtakingly beautiful artistic expressions. The interesting essay on Mr. Simon’s approach to print collecting by Gloria Williams in Picasso, Graphic Magician: Prints from

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PICASSO’S MENAGERIE

Picasso’s depictions of animals are among the most moving of his works and, for Picasso lovers at least, rank among the most moving animal portraiture in the history of Western art. In addition to his beloved dogs, Picasso kept a wide variety of animals through much of his life. A goat slept outside his bedroom. He boarded doves and famously nursed an injured owl back to health. He painted cats, primates, and all sorts of birds. He deeply identified with the circus since a young age, and painted its entire complement of animals repeatedly. He was an avid bullfight spectator, and that spectacle featured prominently in his work as well. Picasso’s father was also an artist, whose major artistic focus

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More Frauds on eBay

Dear Kobi, I found your “Collecting Pitfalls” chapter in your manuscript on the Internet very interesting and informative. There is an offering on eBay for an “original” of Blind Minotaur Led by Young Girl from the 1956 German Vollard Suite, signed by Picasso in pencil. Was there a 1956 German edition of the Vollard Suite? The authenticity of the piece is certified by ______, who the poster of the ebay listing says is a very well known reputable appraiser of Picasso works from England. Have you ever heard of this person? Also, do you have the 1934 Blind Minotaur Led by Young Girl from the original Vollard Suite and, if so, what is the asking price for it? Best regards,

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