"One day a certain painter in Montparnasse came to see me with
one of Picasso's canvases. He wanted only a modest price for it, but he
insisted on my getting Picasso to verify it. I took it to the latter, who
gave on look at it, and said crossly,
"It's a fake."
"But I'm sure it's a genuine Picasso," my visitor protested to me the
following day. "Here's another one. Doesn't that strike you as
genuine too?"
"It certainly does."
But when I showed it to Picasso, he glanced at it even more cursorily
and said,
"It's a fake."
By now I began to have some doubts myself. So I took one of my
own Picassos down from the wall, and carried it to the rue de la Boetie
for the artist to pass judgment. And again he stated flatly,
"It's a fake."
That was too much, and I exclaimed,
"But I saw you do this canvas myself!"
He gave a slight shrug.
"Oh, well," he said, with a smile, "I sometimes do fake Picassos
myself."
--Michel Georges-Michel, quoted in _Anecdotes of Modern Art: frin
[from] Rousseau to Warhol_, Donald Hall, Pat Wykes