Art: Behind the Curtain

The exhibition of pre-World War I Picassos that opened last month in Paris was one of the delights of the season. The 49 paintings ranged from the Blue Period Harlequin and His Companion (1900) to cubist arrangements, such as Violin and Glass (1913), and included some of the finest works of the young Picasso. But last week, after the show had attracted capacity crowds since its opening, the whole affair was abruptly called off.

Thirty-seven of the paintings were on loan from the U.S.S.R., which had confiscated them at the time of the revolution. Many had belonged to an art-loving Moscow grain merchant named Serge Stchoukine. When the magnate’s daughter Irene Stchoukine, who now lives in Paris, started legal proceedings to get back what she considers her rightful inheritance, the Iron Curtain clanged down. One day last week a little black truck sped up to the gallery door, loaded all the disputed Picassos aboard and whisked them off to the Soviet embassy. There, the paintings were back on Soviet soil, where Heiress Stchoukine has no more chance of collecting than a Czarist bond holder.