An art museum in Australia that was embroiled in a gender dispute involving several “Picasso” paintings has admitted that the works were fake.
The paintings had been at the center of a gender battle that broke out after a man from the Australian state of New South Wales took legal action against the gallery after being refused entry to the museum’s “Ladies Lounge” exhibition.
Kirsha Kaechele, the museum’s curator, previously told Guardian Australia that the men’s “experience of rejection is the artwork” and that she was “absolutely delighted” that the case had gone to court.
The exhibition contained some of the museum’s most notable artworks, including some said to have been produced by the Spanish Cubist Pablo Picasso.
After a court ruled that the exhibition violated the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act and that “persons who do not identify as ladies” must be allowed entry, Kaechele made headlines after she moved several of the supposed Picassos, which had hung in the exhibition for more than three years, to a female toilet cubicle.
But in a blog post on the museum’s website on Wednesday, Kaechele said that the works, which included a copy of “Luncheon on the Grass, After Manet,” had, in fact, been painted by herself.
“I knew of a number of Picasso paintings I could borrow from friends, but none of them were green and I wished for the Lounge to be monochrome. I also had time working against me, not to mention the cost of insuring a Picasso—exorbitant!” Kaechele wrote.
She then said she eventually decided to make the paintings with her “own hands and the (perfectly shellacked) hands of my manicurist’s niece, who is far more competent in pen and ink and thus assisted with the etching.”
Comments below the blog post show mixed reactions, with some labeling the stunt “brilliant and brave” while others said she was “trying to take people for fools.”
Art expert Christopher Heathcote told the Guardian that he thought “the entire episode is childish, unprofessional, and reflects poorly on Mona.”
“What is being passed off as an art activist statement is the standard excuse used for attention-seeking sensationalism,” Heathcote added.
The forgery prompted a reevaluation of other works displayed in the Ladies Lounge, and Kaechele revealed that some other items were also not genuine.
Kaechele admitted that a “mink rug” supposedly made by “Princess Mary’s royal furrier” was actually made of low-grade polyester, and some pieces of “precious” jewelry were made of plastic.
Kaechele signed off her blog post by apologizing to the Picasso Administration.
Business Insider contacted Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art for comment.
It’s not the first time that the Australian art world has made headlines this year.
Reports emerged in May that Australia’s richest woman had made multiple approaches to the country’s national gallery to try to get an unflattering portrait of her taken down.
Gina Rinehart’s attempts to remove the painting, which was made by renowned Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira, backfired spectacularly, with news outlets around the world picking up the story and sharing images of the work.
