Claude Ruiz-Picasso, Who Ran His Artist Father’s Estate, Dies at 76

Claude Ruiz-Picasso, who, after a authorized battle that established him and his sister Paloma as legit heirs to their father, the good artist Pablo Picasso, managed his huge property for greater than 30 years, died on Thursday in Switzerland. He was 76.

His dying was confirmed by his lawyer, Jean-Jacques Neuer, who didn’t give a trigger or say the place in Switzerland he died.

Claude and Paloma had been the kids of Picasso and Françoise Gilot, a French painter 40 years his junior, who, after an extended and stormy relationship, left him in 1953. Picasso didn’t deny that he was Claude and Paloma’s father, however he was so indignant when Ms. Gilot revealed a memoir, “Life With Picasso,” in 1964, that he reduce off contact along with her and their kids. Ms. Gilot died in June.

In 1970, Claude Ruiz-Picasso and Paloma Picasso sued in a French court docket to be acknowledged as Picasso’s legit kids. French legislation modified in 1972 to offer kids born out of wedlock rights of inheritance; the siblings gained a court docket ruling in March 1974, virtually a 12 months after their father’s dying, to additional set up their legitimacy. The court docket mentioned that Picasso had confirmed his paternity by dedicating work to them.

By then, Claude Ruiz-Picasso had been residing in New York City since 1967. Over the subsequent seven years, he studied on the Actors Studio; labored as an assistant to the style and portrait photographer Richard Avedon; and commenced a profession as a photojournalist.

Mr. Picasso’s work ultimately appeared in Vogue, Saturday Review, Time and Life magazines. He mentioned that he had been impressed by the photojournalist David Douglas Duncan, who spent years making a pictorial document of his father.

“Duncan was always around, clicking away, and I thought, oh, this would be an interesting occupation,” Mr. Ruiz-Picasso informed the Picasso biographer John Richardson in a 2019 interview for Gagosian Quarterly, an art-world journal revealed by the worldwide gallery proprietor Larry Gagosian. “When I was about 17,” he added, “he very kindly gave me a professional camera.” It was a Nikon.

Claude Ruiz-Picasso was born on May 14, 1947, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Paloma was born two years later. His half-siblings had been Paulo, the son of Picasso’s marriage to the ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, and Maya Ruiz-Picasso, whose mom was the mannequin Marie-Thérèse Walter. Paulo Picasso died at 54 in 1975. Maya Ruiz-Picasso died final 12 months at 87.

In 1989, after six years of squabbling amongst all Picasso’s heirs together with his widow, Jacqueline Roque, over the distribution of the 1000’s of artworks he left behind and the communal proper to take advantage of his identify commercially, a French court docket appointed Mr. Picasso the property’s administrator.

“I never expected or desired to have any kind of role like this, or have any influence over my father’s legacy,” he informed Mr. Richardson. “So because of the Picasso Administration, little by little, I had to quit photography. Not all of a sudden but little by little.”

As the administrator, Mr. Picasso handled copyright and trademark points, made licensing offers, battled with forgers and produced reproductions.

“I think he did an incredible job as a steward of his father’s legacy,” Mr. Gagosian, whose galleries have offered quite a few Picasso exhibits, mentioned in a cellphone interview. “He took it seriously and was extremely strict about how the Picasso image was handled.”

One of Mr. Picasso’s licensing offers concerned promoting his father’s identify and signature in 1998 to PSA Peugeot-Citroen, the French automaker. Marina Picasso, Paulo’s daughter, challenged the deal in court docket. She informed a French newspaper, “I can’t tolerate that the name of my grandfather and of my father be used to sell something as banal as a car.”

According to a 2016 Vanity Fair article in regards to the Picasso artwork empire, Citroen paid a reported $20 million, plus royalties, for the deal, and had offered some 3.5 million Picasso vehicles on the time.

In July, Mr. Ruiz-Picasso was changed as property administrator by Paloma Picasso, a jewellery designer.

He is survived by his spouse, Sylvie Vautier Picasso, and his sons, Solal and Jasmin.

In 2018, Mr. Ruiz-Picasso criticized the Musée Picasso in Paris for lending out too a lot of its Picasso works to the numerous exhibitions scheduled in France that 12 months. He mentioned that a few of these works had been fragile and shouldn’t be used to bulk up the exhibits.

“Many people expect to make discoveries that, at the end of the day, they do not make, and they are not satisfied with what is on offer,” he informed The Times of London. “Among the exhibitions held, there is a load that are not necessary.”

In response, Laurent Le Bon, the chairman of the museum, mentioned: “My objective is to ensure that the museum is not a tomb. Instead of the same old exhibitions on Picasso and women, Picasso and love, and Picasso and light, we are trying to develop new ideas.”