Remember Picasso’s electrician in the south of France, who claimed that the artist gave him 271 artworks? He was indicted last summer after the Picasso estate accused him of stealing the items. Now a similar case is being reported in the region around Tours, where a retired man says that Alexander Calder gave him nine small mobiles when he lived and worked there in the 1970s. The Calder Foundation has accused him not of stealing the works, but of counterfeiting them. The mobiles — which, if authentic, could be worth €2 million ($2.75 million) — were seized by French authorities and the foundation has filed suit against the man for forgery.
According to La Nouvelle République, which broke the story, the man, whose name has not been released, claims to have helped Calder with the technical aspects of some of his sculptures between 1969 and 1975, when the artist lived in the town of Saché. At this time, in addition to making small mobiles, Calder produced some of his monumental steel works at the Biémont factory in Tours (including “Bent Propeller,” commissioned for 7 World Trade Center and destroyed in the attacks of September 11). Calder, who died in 1976 at the age of 78, was very friendly with the townspeople, according to La Nouvelle République, and often gave “gouaches or small mobiles to certain residents who did him favors.”
