Actually, Pablo Picasso wás called an asshole once

P.S.
The John Cale/Jonathan Richman song “Pablo Picasso (was never called an asshole)” reminded me of a silly, yet funny anecdote. The song goes like this:

“Oh well be not schmuck, be not obnoxious,
Be not bellbottom bummer or asshole
Remember the story of Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.”

It’s a funny song, however, Pablo Picasso wás called an asshole once, back in 1911 by famous poet, pornographer and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. They were both friends of the Belgian drifter and thief Géry Pieret, who stole objects from the Louvre in Paris (Iberian stone sculptures from the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.) in order to sell them to Picasso. This was in 1907. The objects inspired Picasso to paint the famous Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. In 1911 Pieret again stole an Iberian head from the Louvre and gave it to Apollinaire as a present. A couple of weeks later the Mona Lisa got stolen and Apollinaire and Picasso started to get worried (although Pieret had nothing to do with it – the painting was stolen by employee Vincenzo Peruggia). Apollinaire paid Pieret a ticket and put him on the train to Marseille. Consequently, Picasso and Apollinaire spent the night lugging the stolen heads around Paris in a suitcase, waiting for the right moment to drop them in the Seine. But the police got tipped and Apollinaire’s apartment was raided. The police kept him in jail for six days. Due to increasing pressure by the Parisian art circles, Apollinaire was finally released. But during the investigation and interrogation of suspects, Picasso’s name was also mentioned. At the police office, the magistrate asked Picasso whether he knew Apollinaire, who was in the same room. A pale and trembling Picasso mumbled, to his lifelong shame, “I have never seen this man”. Apollinaire was humiliated and this episode infected his art critique and opinions of Picasso: “You’re an asshole” – he probably said. His emergence in 1912 as the big man of the Puteaux Cubists, along with Francis Picabia and the Duchamp brothers, was undoubtedly motivated by anger over Picasso’s cowardly betrayal. Still, in 1916 Picasso made a drawing of Apollinaire - perhaps to feel better.
I just wanted to tell you this story. You can read more about it in one of the greatest art history books ever: Calvin Tomkins’s splendid biography “Duchamp” (London 1997).