 He was repulsed yet intrigued by the exorbitant art auction prices of dead artists, and was especially annoyed when "Picasso"'s cubist painting of "La Lecture", that featured Picasso's mistress asleep in an armchair, sold for $40.7 million at a London auction house.Quoting verbatim in typical Alex Mendelssohn frankness "It's just torn apart bits of a woman.