Paris auctioneer Jacques Tajan who has been facing a lawsuit following the controversial auction sale of the Giacometti succession claimed on November 14th 1998 that he was the victim of a plot engineered by the Giacometti Association run by the American secretary of the artist's widow. Jacques Tajan has been accused of having falsified his sale report regarding a bronze statuette representing a nude which was eventually privately sold to London dealer Joe Nahmad.
France's top auctioneer said he was victim of a plot engineered by the Giacometti Association which was opposed to the sale which took place on July 11th 1994.
The lawsuit enacted by the Association concerned lot number 6 which remained unsold. This lot was finally bought from the auctioneer by Mr Nahmad a few days later.
Jacques Tajan explained that he had conducted the sale of 18 works by Alberto Giacometti in order to pay off succession costs. The sale had been decided by Roland Dumas, a famous lawyer who was the executor of the succession of Annette Giacometti.
The auctioneer said that Joe Nahmad was bidding for lot number 6 in the auction room while his brother was competing on the telephone from London.
«When I noticed that the two brothers were competing one against the other and were the only contestants at 1,8 million francs (US $ 327,000) I decided to stop the bidding and to allocate this lot at 1,1 million according to the last offer made by one of the brothers, » he told the daily « Le Monde ».
Observers said Jacques Tajan should have stopped the bidding and resumed it from the starting price instead. However, the 1,8 million price first appeared on the sale report.
«I was wrong to amend the sale report and to indicate the real sum of 1,1 million afterwards,» Jacques Tajan admitted.
Such correction led to a judicial investigation which will probably lead to fraud charges against the auctioneer who has claimed he was the victim of a dirty trick.
«I could not let the bidding go up between two brothers who are all the more partners. This would have been dishonest and for me this is a question of honour, » he said.
About the sale report which had been amended, he admitted his collaborators had made a blunder in mentioning that lot number 6 had remained unsold.
Asked why the Nahmad brothers had not come up to confirm his version, Jacques Tajan replied that they had bought eight of the 18 pieces he had sold for an amount of 14,27 million FF (US $ 2,59 million). «What could I ask more from them ? Should these people continue to buy art works in France ? Should we want to lose all our last foreign buyers ?», he said.
Jacques Tajan added that the 1,1 million franc had been effectively transferred to the accounts of the succession.
«This sculpture represents almost nothing compared with the 1,2 million art works I have sold during my career which has been spanning over 35 years. The problem is elsewhere as I repeat I am the target of a plot engineered by the Giacometti Association. The people representing it don't have any importance and have no legal rights. Strangely enough their
legitimacy has been rejected twice by courts. Its secretary, Mary Lisa Palmer pretends she holds moral rights because she was Annette's secretary whereas she has never known Alberto during his lifetime. It is unbelievable that she wants to be the central figure of a Foundation which would manage an artistic patrimony of 1 billion francs,» he told «Le Monde».
«This is a matter much too serious to endow Mrs Palmer with the right of managing such treasure. That is why she wants to settle a score,» he added.
«Some people are trying to pay off old scores against me,» he said referring to the Association of the Friends of Annette and Alberto Giacometti which was set up in 1989 by the artist's widow with the aim of creating a Giacometti Foundation. Two poets, Jacques Dupin and André du Bouchet, art historian David Sylvester and photographer Sabine Weiss are among the members of this Association.
Jacques Tajan has been opposed to the setting up of such Foundation which has remained a pious wish so far. He would rather be in favour of a donation to cover succession costs and has cast doubts about the ability of the members of the Giacometti Association to run such an institution.
The succession, estimated between 750 and 1 billion francs
(US $ 136 and 181 million) includes over 700 works - Paintings, sculptures, engravings and archives- by Alberto Giacometti . Jacques Tajan had been in charge of its inventory for which he received 6 million francs (US $ 1,08 million), a sum which he justified by the fact that his work took him four years to complete.
«It's slanderous to challenge my fees,» he said stressing that the sale had been organised to cover insurance and storage costs for the succession. However the sale of four major paintings and four bronzes was challenged by the Giacometti Association which enacted the present lawsuit.
The Association, which remains in charge of authenticating Giacometti's works, also denounced a collusion between Roland Dumas, presently the President of France's constitutional Council, and Jacques Tajan.
Annette's former American secretary Mary Lisa Palmer, who now runs the Association, said she had acted in her own right after Claude and Michel Arm, Annette's brothers, had their lawsuit against the Association dismissed by a Paris court on July 1st 1998.
«Annette indicated in her will that she wanted me to take care of moral rights regarding the production of Alberto Giacometti. She also hoped that I would jointly publish with the Association the Catalogue Raisonné of Giacometti's works which she had started in 1966. She also wanted me to sort up her papers and other documents but Jacques Tajan and the notary in charge of the succession started to put a spoke in my wheel. I was thus forced to lodge a complaint before a Paris court to have my moral rights confirmed. However I lost my case and it's now up to the Supreme court of appeal to decide, » Mary Lisa Palmer said.
Asked about Jacques Tajan's comments about her so-called incompetence to run a Foundation she replied that the auctioneer's state of mind was not her business. «What is so important to me is Annette Giacometti's implicit will. If I have not known Alberto personally other members of the Association, like Jacques Dupin, who published the first monograph on his works, or André du Bouchet, did so. Still I have been working during 25 years on the future catalogue raisonné and I am taking care of his works as part of my work with the Associaton,» she stressed.
She added that she was indifferent to Jacques Tajan's negative stand regarding the opportunity of setting up a Foundation. Such project is none of his business and I have no special score to settle with him. I only want Annette's will to be respected, » she indicated.
Mary Lisa Palmer said she was awaiting a final decision from the Ministry of Culture regarding the fate of the Foundation.
«Minister Catherine Trautmann has come forward to say she was in favour of such project,» she stressed.
Meanwhile Jacques Tajan has been involved in two other litigious cases. In December 1995 he had sold a Monet painting, «Block of ice in the River Seine at Port Villez» for 5,3 million FF. The sale had been shown in a television broadcast whereas the painting had in fact remained unsold. However, the sale report indicated a sum of 4,8 million FF for the painting, a price paid by a British collector in a private transaction after the sale, a practice forbidden by French law.
Mr Tajan defended his position by stressing that during the sale Paris had been affected by transport strikes which prevented his buyer from attending it. «I thus decided to buy the painting for this collector. However when I managed to get in touch with him he found the price a bit excessive. I thus decided to grant him a 10% rebate equivalent to my commission. This created a precedent as all my buyers could have claimed to benefit from such treatment. I therefore considered that the painting had been sold for 4,8 million FF,» he then explained.
The other case in which Jacques Tajan was involved concerned the succession of Claire Baude, the widow of a French industrialist. She died in 1996 bequeathing her belongings to the Pasteur and to a charity association called «Doctors of the World».
Some time before her death she had been placed under guardianship at the request of her banker who was concerned about heavy withdrawals from her account. After she died, the guardian seized a court after discovering that some 3,5 million FF (US $ 636,000) worth of jewels, silver and 18th century fans had disappeared from her assets. Four people close to the widow were charged for embezzling these goods while Jacques Tajan's role regarding 11 sales held from February 1995 until July 1996 which totalled 13,5 million francs (US $ 2,45 million) has been the object of an investigation.
The guardian claimed from him 2,5 million FF which remained to be paid from the total sum and asked the auctioneer to provide the sales reports some of which were missing. The problem was that Mme Baude had never given a mandate to Jacques Tajan to sell her belongings and police questioned him about this case last June.
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