On Tuesday, an art enthusiast from Paris was overjoyed to discover he had won a Pablo Picasso painting valued at over $1 million in a raffle.
“How can I be sure this isn’t a scam?” Ari Hodara, 58, questioned after receiving a call from the raffle organizers post-draw at Christie’s auction house in the French capital.
Hodara, who considers himself an art novice and is a fan of Picasso, purchased his ticket over the weekend after serendipitously learning about the charity raffle while dining at a restaurant.
“First, I will share this news with my wife, who is still at work,” said Hodara, a sales engineer. “Initially, I think I will enjoy it and keep the painting for myself.”
This third edition of the “1 Picasso for 100 euros” lottery featured Picasso’s Head of a Woman, a portrait of his longtime muse and partner, Dora Maar. This gouache-on-paper artwork was created in 1941. A ticket priced at 100 euros is approximately $162.
The online raffle provided participants with an opportunity to win a painting by the renowned Spanish artist, with proceeds going to support Alzheimer’s research.
A 59-year-old software engineer from Paris won a Picasso painting worth one million euros ($1.6 million CDN) in a non-profit raffle on Tuesday. Ari Hodara was selected at random at Christie’s auction house in Paris from 120,000 tickets sold at 100 euros each, with the raffle’s proceeds going toward Alzheimer’s disease research.
According to the organizers, all 120,000 tickets were sold globally, generating 12 million euros ($19.5 million). From that total, one million euros will be allocated to the Opera Gallery, the international art dealership that held ownership of the painting.
Gilles Dyan, the founder of the gallery, mentioned that he provided a special price for the artwork, which is publicly valued at 1.45 million euros ($2.35 million).
Millions raised
The inaugural raffle took place in 2013 and saw a man from Pennsylvania, who worked in a fire-sprinkler company, win Man in the Opera Hat, a piece Picasso created in 1914 during his Cubist phase.
In 2020, the oil-on-canvas Still Life was raffled and won by Claudia Borgogno, an accountant in Italy, whose son gifted her the ticket for Christmas.
This painting, created in 1921, was acquired from billionaire art collector David Nahmad for the raffle. Nahmad stated in an interview with The Associated Press that Picasso would have supported the idea of his artwork being raffled off. Picasso passed away in 1973.
The Alzheimer Research Foundation, which organized the charity raffle, is based in one of Paris’s prominent public hospitals and has established itself as France’s top private funder of Alzheimer-related medical research since its inception in 2004.
Organizers noted that the two earlier Picasso raffles collectively raised over 10 million euros for cultural initiatives in Lebanon and for water and hygiene projects in Africa.