Letter: That notorious fake
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Sir: Picasso's 'confession', quoted in your correspondence columns on 3 March as evidence of the artist's bad faith, is notorious. It was invented by the Italian writer Giovanni Papini and is one of a series of imaginary interviews published as Il Libro Nero in 1951. Other 'interviewees' included Stendhal and Kafka.
In 1955, Picasso's biographer Pierre Daix exposed the fake in Les Lettres Francaises. It was more recently denounced by Picasso's current biographer, John Richardson, in the catalogue of the 1988 Late Picasso exhibition and again, less than a year ago, by the art historian and critic Richard Dorment in the London Spectator, which had published it as genuine.
Yours sincerely,
SIMON WILSON
Curator of Interpretation
Tate Gallery
London, SW1
10 March
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