Peri Cochin, proper, founding father of “1 Picasso for 100 euros,” speaks on the cellphone with the winner, Ari Hodara of Paris, subsequent to the portray ‘Head of a Lady’ by Pablo Picasso, painted in 1941, after the raffle draw at Christie’s in Paris, Tuesday, April 14, 2026, in assist of Alzheimer’s analysis.
Michel Euler/AP
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Michel Euler/AP
PARIS — A Parisian artwork fanatic couldn’t consider his luck when he came upon Tuesday he’d gained a Pablo Picasso portray price $1 million with a $117 raffle ticket.
“How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” mentioned Ari Hodara, 58, after organizers referred to as him following the draw at Christie’s public sale home within the French capital.
Hodara described himself as an artwork novice keen on Picasso and mentioned he purchased his ticket over the weekend after discovering out concerning the charity raffle by probability throughout a meal in a restaurant.
“First, I will tell the news to my wife, who has yet to return from work,” mentioned Hodara, a gross sales engineer. “And at first, I think I’ll take advantage of it and keep it.”
The third iteration of the “1 Picasso for 100 euros” lottery was for Picasso’s “Head of a Woman,” a portrait of Picasso’s longtime muse and accomplice Dora Maar. The gouache-on-paper was painted by the artist in 1941.
The net draw provided the prospect to win a $1 million portrait by the Spanish artist in assist of Alzheimer’s analysis.
Organizers mentioned all 120,000 tickets had been offered worldwide, netting 12 million euros ($14 million). Of that, 1 million euros will likely be paid to the Opera Gallery, a global artwork dealership that owned the portray.
Gilles Dyan, the gallery founder, mentioned he provided a preferential value for the portray, with the general public value at 1.45 million euros.
The primary raffle in 2013 noticed a Pennsylvania man who labored at a fire-sprinkler enterprise win “Man in the Opera Hat,” which the Spanish grasp painted in 1914 throughout his Cubist interval.
The oil-on-canvas “Still Life” was raffled off in 2020 and gained by Claudia Borgogno, an accountant in Italy whose son purchased her the ticket as a Christmas current.
Painted in 1921, that portray was bought for the raffle from billionaire artwork collector David Nahmad, who argued in an interview with The Related Press that Picasso would have permitted of his work being raffled. Picasso died in 1973.
The Alzheimer Analysis Basis, the charity raffle’s organizer, is predicated in one in all Paris’ main public hospitals and says it has turn out to be France’s main personal financier of Alzheimer-related medical analysis since its founding in 2004.
Organizers mentioned the 2 earlier Picasso raffles raised a complete of greater than 10 million euros for cultural work in Lebanon and water and hygiene applications in Africa.
