Pierre Calté

to Hans Neuendorf

Paris,  November 8 2002

 Mr. Neuendorf,

 The controversy instigated by M. Tarica against the Picabia Committee, which you have joined by giving it publicity via your website Artnet.com, calls for a few comments – in my own name and not that of the Picabia Committee.

 First I must mention the obvious common interest that has made you act in favor of Mr. Tarica:  as the previous owner of the contested collage Portrait de femme II exhibited in Verona in 1997, you are directly interested in any attempt to prove the authenticity of works from the series to which that collage belongs. 

Second, I find it difficult to believe that your participation in the effort to discredit Olga Picabia and the Committee she founded has no relation to your persistence in denying  obligations you still have to her and her memory.

 May I remind you :

- that in the late 1980s, without any document having been signed, you « acquired » from Mme. Picabia a number of important paintings by Picabia, in return for an annual lifetime income that you agreed to pay her based on the value of the paintings,  many of which you exhibited in your gallery;

- that in 1993 you stopped payments for the annual income;

- that in settlement of a debt that you could not pay, these paintings subsequently became the « property » of a German bank that no more than you can justify ownership of the paintings;

- that these paintings were later sold to a gallery in Switzerland and in public auctions, under unknown circumstances and uncertain authority;

- that for nearly 10 years you never responded, especially in writing, to requests for an explanation from Mme. Picabia and her legal representatives, leaving her at the end of her life in severe financial difficulty.

Consequently, I can only consider your present association with M. Tarica in attacking the memory of Olga Picabia and questioning the honesty of the members of the Picabia Committee as a smokescreen to cover your own dishonesty.

 Sincerely yours,

 Pierre Calté