Kirsha Kaechele with one of her forged Picassos

A court ruled earlier this year that Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) could not lawfully bar men from its Ladies’ Lounge, following a discrimination complaint from a male patron.

In response, MONA said it had moved the three “Picassos” to a women’s toilet — dubbing it “Cubism in the cubicles” — to continue to prevent men from viewing them.

The saga was widely covered by international media from the opening of the Ladies’ Lounge in 2020 to the legal proceedings which began early last year.

However, in a final, unexpected twist, curator Kirsha Kaechele has admitted that she forged all three of the paintings which have been presented as genuine Picassos for the past four years.

In a blog post for the gallery, which is owned by her husband, Kaechele claimed that she “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”, and that she had concerns about the “exorbitant” insurance costs.

She said she was coming clean as a result of questioning from journalists and the Picasso Administration, which manages the late Spanish artist’s estate.