A man has won an original Pablo Picasso painting worth more than €1m (£870,000; $1.2m) in a charity raffle. Ari Hodara, an engineer and art enthusiast, learned he was the winner on Tuesday when he answered a video call from Christie's auction house in Paris. How do I know this isn't a prank? the 58-year-old asked when he was told he was the new owner of the 1941 work by the Spanish master. Organisers said more than 120,000 tickets for the prize draw were sold at €100 (£87; $118) each, raising around €11m (£10m; $13m) for Alzheimer's research.
The draw was the third edition of the 1 Picasso for 100 euros fundraising raffle, which was founded in 2013. This year's prize was Tête de Femme (Head of a Woman), a gouache-on-paper portrait rendered in Picasso's signature style, depicting his partner and muse, the French surrealist artist Dora Maar.
I was surprised, that's it, said Hodara during a phone call with auctioneers after the draw. When you bet on this, you don't expect to win... But I'm very happy because I'm very interested in painting, and it's great news for me. Hodara's ticket was number 94,715. He claimed to have bought it over the weekend after learning about the competition by chance.
French journalist Peri Cochin organised the raffle with backing from Picasso's family and foundation. She expressed joy that the winner lived in Paris despite tickets being sold in dozens of countries worldwide, stressing the ease of delivering the painting. The city is also historically significant to Picasso, housing many of his works in its museums.
Of the money raised, €1m is set to go to the Opera Gallery, the painting's owner, with the remaining funds donated to France's Alzheimer's Research Foundation. This Picasso initiative is one more building block so that one day Alzheimer's will be nothing more than a bad memory, said the foundation's head, Olivier de Ladoucette.
The first edition of the raffle was won by a 25-year-old American from Pennsylvania in 2013, with funds raised to help preserve the Lebanese city of Tyre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The second edition in 2020 was won by a 58-year-old Italian accountant after her son bought her a ticket for Christmas, with proceeds donated to sanitation projects in schools and villages across Cameroon, Madagascar, and Morocco.
The draw was the third edition of the 1 Picasso for 100 euros fundraising raffle, which was founded in 2013. This year's prize was Tête de Femme (Head of a Woman), a gouache-on-paper portrait rendered in Picasso's signature style, depicting his partner and muse, the French surrealist artist Dora Maar.
I was surprised, that's it, said Hodara during a phone call with auctioneers after the draw. When you bet on this, you don't expect to win... But I'm very happy because I'm very interested in painting, and it's great news for me. Hodara's ticket was number 94,715. He claimed to have bought it over the weekend after learning about the competition by chance.
French journalist Peri Cochin organised the raffle with backing from Picasso's family and foundation. She expressed joy that the winner lived in Paris despite tickets being sold in dozens of countries worldwide, stressing the ease of delivering the painting. The city is also historically significant to Picasso, housing many of his works in its museums.
Of the money raised, €1m is set to go to the Opera Gallery, the painting's owner, with the remaining funds donated to France's Alzheimer's Research Foundation. This Picasso initiative is one more building block so that one day Alzheimer's will be nothing more than a bad memory, said the foundation's head, Olivier de Ladoucette.
The first edition of the raffle was won by a 25-year-old American from Pennsylvania in 2013, with funds raised to help preserve the Lebanese city of Tyre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The second edition in 2020 was won by a 58-year-old Italian accountant after her son bought her a ticket for Christmas, with proceeds donated to sanitation projects in schools and villages across Cameroon, Madagascar, and Morocco.
