A Frenchman has won a Pablo Picasso painting worth 1 million euros ($1.6 million) in a non-profit raffle.<\/p>\n
The winner, Ari Hodara, a 58-year-old software engineer from Paris, was selected at random at Christie’s auction house in Paris from 120,000 tickets sold at 100 euros apiece.<\/p>\n
The raffle’s proceeds will fund Alzheimer’s disease research.<\/p>\n
“How do I know this isn’t a prank?” Mr Hodara said during a phone call with organisers shortly after the draw.<\/p>\n
“I was surprised, that’s it \u2026 When you bet on this, you don’t expect to win.”<\/p>\n
Launched in 2013, the “1 Picasso for 100 euros” raffle aims to support charities by giving participants a chance to win an original work by the famed Spanish artist.<\/p>\n
Mr Hodara described himself as an art amateur fond of Picasso and said he bought his ticket over the weekend after learning about the charity raffle by chance during a restaurant meal.<\/p>\n
“First, I will tell the news to my wife, who has yet to return from work,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And at first, I think I’ll take advantage of it and keep it.”<\/p>\n
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This was the third edition of the raffle.<\/p>\n
This year’s prize was T\u00eate de Femme (Head of a Woman), a gouache-on-paper portrait painted by Picasso in 1941.<\/p>\n
Rendered in his signature style, the grey, white and cream composition reflects the sombre mood of the era, while also suggesting hope, Picasso’s grandson, Olivier Widmaier Picasso, has said.<\/p>\n
For the first time in the raffle’s history, all 120,000 tickets were sold, organisers said.<\/p>\n
One million euros from the sales will go to international gallery chain Opera Gallery, the painting’s current owner, they said.<\/p>\n
The remaining proceeds of approximately 11 million euros will be donated to France’s Fondation Recherche Alzheimer, a leading funder of research into the neurodegenerative disease.<\/p>\n
The raffle’s first edition in 2013 raised 4.8 million euros and awarded Picasso’s The Man in the Opera Hat to then 25-year-old American Jeffrey Gonano.<\/p>\n
Proceeds went to the preservation of the Lebanese city of Tyre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.<\/p>\n
In the second edition, in 2020, an Italian woman won Picasso’s still life Nature Morte with a ticket she had received as a Christmas gift from her son.<\/p>\n
Proceeds were donated to sanitation projects in schools and villages in Cameroon, Madagascar and Morocco.<\/p>\n
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