WORLD
Bosnian Town Library Unveils 'Secret' Picasso
Baku, January 18 (AZERTAC). A library in the remote Bosnian town of Kozarska Dubica claims it has an original work by Pablo Picasso, which they kept secret for years in order to protect it.
A graphic piece by the famous painter Pablo Picasso, which was apparently kept secret for years, has been unveiled in a library in the north Bosnian town of Kozarska Dubica, media reports on January 16 said.
The town library claims the piece is an original, painted in the Sixties, which they obtained as a gift in the late Eighties.
“At that time we did not have technical conditions to preserve it. It could only be saved by silence,” Stojan Banjac, former director of the Center for Culture in Kozarska Dubica, said.
Media reports say the precious artwork was gifted by a local wartime hero, Bosko Siljegovic, who allegedly obtained it in Paris in 1964 while taking part in a Communist congress.
The photograph of the painting shows no initials of the artist in question but only a date from the same year.
Despite the inevitable scepticism about whether it is really an original, the Kozarska Dubica library maintains there is no question that this is a true Picasso.
Picasso was born in 1881 in Spain and died in 1973. His paintings have routinely sold for more than 100 million US dollars at auctions in recent years.