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Coveted Picasso paintings sell for a fortune in Sweden

Four works by one of the greatest painters of all time have been sold in Sweden for a small fortune, as international buyers jumped at a rare chance to own paintings by Spaniard Pablo Picasso.

Coveted Picasso paintings sell for a fortune in Sweden
Deep pockets were needed to claim one of the works. Photo: Uppsala auktionskammare

The paintings were formally part of the Neuman Collection, a collection of artwork compiled by Swedish businessman Bertil Neuman, who died in 2011. The works, which came to Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s, were auctioned off at Uppsala Auction House (Uppsala auktionskammare) on Wednesday night.

“Go out on the street in any city in any country and ask ‘Who is Pablo Picasso?’. Everyone would know he’s one of the foremost painters of the 1900s,” Uppsala Auction House CEO and Picasso expert Magnus Behed told The Local.

“It’s a world name. So there were customers all over the world interested in these paintings.”

The biggest earner was “Fillette au béret”, a portrait of a little girl done by Picasso in the 1960s, which fetched 26,215,000 kronor ($2.9 million) from a starting price of 12-18 million kronor.

The painting had been showed in London, Paris and New York during October, helping to entice bidders from all over the world.

“’Fillette au béret’, which dates from 1964, is a very typical Picasso painting. If you were to hide the signature, everyone would still know it’s Picasso,” Behed explained.


Uppsala Auction House chief curator Knut Knutson (left) and Behed with “Fillette au béret” Photo: Uppsala auktionskamare

“Nus”, a painting from the latter stages of Picasso’s life, went for 10.53 million kronor ($1.16 million) from a starting price of between 3-5 million kronor. Two of the Spaniard's other works, “Femme nue se coiffant” and “Le repos”, also sold for millions.

Wednesday was the first time that four Picassos had been auctioned off in Sweden.

“Having four of these in Sweden is completely abnormal. It was fantastic. You’d call it a white-glove sale. Everything sold, and for 80 percent over the starting price. So it’s a very big success, a very big success,” Behed beamed. 

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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