Werner Spies
[1] Klaus Albrecht Schröder, director of the Albertina in Vienna, has called Spies "one of the most influential art historians of the 20th century.[5] As an expert on and friend of[6][7] Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso, he has written many books and organized major exhibitions on these artists.[8] He compiled the first catalogue raisonné of Picasso's sculptures in 1971, and organized the first Max Ernst retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1975.[13] On 24 May 2013, Spies was convicted by the high court in Nanterre and ordered to pay €652,883 to the collector who purchased in 2004 an alleged Max Ernst painting, Tremblement de Terre, that he had wrongly authenticated.[14] However, the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal of Versailles, which ruled that Spies had "expresse[d] an opinion outside of a determined transaction" and could not therefore "be charged with a responsibility equivalent to that of an expert consulted in the context of a sale".