Like Arghezi, Macedonski, Galaction and Mateiu Caragiale, he remained in German-occupied territory. Despite his apparent triumph over the Ententist lobby, he kept a low profile: according to popular but unverifiable rumors, he was even arrested once the occupation authorities angrily discovered his uselessness for the cause. He was however a free man as of April 12, 1917, the date of his marriage to Domnica Colanoski. One account has it that Bogdan-Pitești proceeded to denounce his "Ileana" colleague, Petrescu Găină, who had published a set of anti-German cartoons. As a result, the Romanian draftsman spent the war years in German captivity. Once Romania recovered possession over its southern areas, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești was reportedly prosecuted for treason and was again sent to Văcărești. Others however note that this last sentence, passed in 1919, was not in fact related to his wartime dealings, but merely to his fraudulent activities, and that only by coincidence did Bogdan-Pitești share a prison with the convicted collaborationist journalists (Arghezi, Karnabatt, Ioan Slavici). Vianu notes that Bogdan-Pitești spent his last years "in ignominy", while Cernat describes his definitive fall to the status of "a pariah". The art promoter died four years after the war ended, at his house in Bucharest, having suffered a myocardial infarction. According to Cernat, his "grotesque" death was sudden, catching him in the middle of a telephone conversation. Reportedly, Bogdan-Pitești's last wish had been for his collection to pass into state property and be kept as a museum. Bogdan-Pitești was the subject of fascination in the literary and artistic community. Lucian Boia writes about his seductive "legend", which fused an "imaginative and generous intellectual" with a "con artist" who "lived life as he saw fit". Art historian Corina Teacă notes that, like Félix Fénéon, Bogdan-Pitești was in fact fabricating his own myth: "every part of his public image was a removable mask." The art institutions he helped establish were, nevertheless, reputable. According to Paul Cernat, his influential circle was "an excellent medium of transmission for the modern spirit, an informal institution and one of the first coagulant factors for [Romania's] first post-symbolist modernism."