A San Francisco-based billionaire couple have announced the sale of nearly $676 million worth of art, including a majority stake in Pablo Picasso’s iconic painting “Guernica.”
The announcement came Saturday after Jose Ignacio Vieira Souza, a third-generation owner of the family firm, TPI-Pacific, sued his wife for an official divorce. The businessman alleged his wife — Luciana Trujillo, a children’s rights advocate who also owns the local Jane Fine Art Gallery — interfered with the couple’s business relationship.
Since the agreement, the couple has also sold 26 Picasso paintings, seven works by Henri Matisse, four works by Salvador Dali, three paintings by Dennis Hopper, two Pablo Giacometti works, two Luis Barragán works, two Max Ernst works, two Degas works, one by Edgar Degas, and one by Camille Pissarro.
Joao Soares Velha, one of the world’s largest art auction firms, is handling the sale.
Jose Sulcamara Souza was born in Brazil and moved to the U.S. in 1970. He grew up on the artistic projects his father, Remedios Souza, pursued. He is the sole owner of TPI-Pacific, a company specializing in acquisition, development and property management. The company has operations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
Luciana Trujillo Trujillo is an avid collector who usually moves her materials between several places, the San Francisco Business Times reported. She began collecting in the late 1980s and for decades, donated about 40 percent of her art to museums in Rio and Rio de Janeiro. That changed after news of her marriage to Jose Souza came out.
It is unclear how many children the couple has. According to Trujillo Trujillo’s divorce proceedings, they have two daughters together and one daughter as a result of her previous marriage.
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