Two leading New York City museums will remain the owners of two Picasso paintings after settling claims by the heirs of a Jewish banker that the family was forced by the Nazis to sell the works of art. The family of a Jewish banker in Berlin in the 1930s sued the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation for the paintings, claiming they were sold under pressure in Nazi Germany.
A judge concluded last week that the family had produced enough evidence for the case to go to trial. The paintings are Picasso’s "Boy Leading a Horse" and "Le Moulin de la Galette. The two leading New York City museums will remain the owners of two Picasso paintings after the settlement that was announced in Manhattan federal court last Monday as the case was about to go to trial.
Meanwhile in Parism, Parisians, waited patiently into the early hours over the weekend to see the final, all-night sessions of a triumphantly successful exhibition of Picasso paintings.
Despite sub-zero temperatures, crowds besieged the Grand Palais, just off the Champs Elysées, until 3am on Friday and Saturday nights – part of a recessionary boom in demand for cultural activities which is puzzling, and delighting, the French arts industry.
There has been a similar surge in ticket sales for musical events, ranging from a high-brow Bach festival in Nantes to a low-brow, all-singing and dancing pop musical based on the life of Cleopatra.
Sociologists explain the cultural boom as partly a search for distraction from the miseries of the headlines, and partly a tribute to the fact that art exhibitions and concerts are cheaper than eating out.
The French political guru and writer Jacques Attali offered a more existential explanation. "Periods of crisis encourage people to consider the meaning of life," he told the Journal du Dimanche. "We are torn, at present, between despair, anguish and rebellion but we also yearn for the beauty which comes only from works of art."
By the time it closes at 8pm tonight, over 750,000 people will have seen Picasso et les Maîtres at the Grand Palais. The show, which opened four months ago, is the first to exhibit a large number of Picasso paintings alongside canvasses by painters who influenced him, from Velasquez and Poussin to the Impressionists.
The show has become one of the most fashionable events, not just in Paris, but in the world. Visitors who managed to book tickets in the final weeks have included Nicole Kidman, Woody Allen and – on the same day – Mick Jagger and Jacques Chirac.
To satisfy those who failed to buy the limited number of reserved places, the French national museum service extended the show and opened the Grand Palais all night for the last three nights. Queues were expected to form once again for last night's final all-night session. "We didn't want to miss out," said Eric Bonsergent, who queued into the early hours of Sunday. "They say people don't go to museums, but for a wonderful exhibition like this there is huge demand. It was a brilliant idea to open all night."
Others admitted that they were there against their will. "We booked for 2.30am, thinking that they meant 2.30pm," Gerard Sainton, a 59-year-old computer expert, said ruefully.
