A man has won a
painting by Pablo Picasso, worth about $1.2
million.
The winner is Ari
Hodara. He is an engineer and he likes art. He found out he won when he
answered a video call from Christie's in Paris.
At first, he did
not believe it. He asked, “How do I know this is not a joke?”
People bought
more than 120,000 tickets for the raffle. Each ticket cost about $120. In total, they raised about $13 million for Alzheimer’s research.
This fund raising
raffle is called “1 Picasso for 100 euros.” It started in 2013.
The prize this
year was a painting called Tête de Femme (“Head of a Woman”). It shows Dora
Maar, who was Picasso’s partner and also an artist.
Hodara, the
winner, said, “I was surprised. When you buy a ticket, you don’t expect to win.
But I am very happy because I love painting.”
His ticket number was 94,715. He bought it over the weekend after learning about the competition by chance.
French journalist Peri Cochin organized the raffle with help from Picasso’s family and foundation.
Although the
tickets were sold in dozens of countries worldwide, she said it was great that
the winner lives in Paris because it will be easy to give him the painting.
Paris is also the
city where Picasso lived and worked for many years.
From the money
raised, about $1.2 million will
go to the Opera Gallery that owned the painting. The rest will go to France's Alzheimer's
Research Foundation.
The first edition
of the raffle was in 2013. A 25-year old American man from the U.S. won, and the money helped
protect the Lebanese city of Tyre - a
Unesco World Heritage Site.
A 58-year-old Italian accountant won the second edition, in 2020, after
her son bought her a ticket for Christmas. Proceeds were donated to sanitation
projects in schools and villages in Cameroon, Madagascar and Morocco.
From BBC (edited)
