Foto AP Photo/Michel Euler
In the third project, “1 Picasso for 100 euros”, luck smiled on the Parisian engineer Ari Hodare. He was the winner of “Tête de Femme” (“Head of a Woman”), a gouache on paper created by Picasso in 1941. Despite the symbolic cost of the ticket, the work itself is valued at about one million euros, writes Finestrsull’Arte. The work was provided by Opera Gallery, a partner of the project.
The final drawing was held in Paris with the participation of the auction house Christie’s. A total of 120,000 tickets were sold, with all proceeds going to support the Fondation Recherche Alzheimer – one of the leading organizations in France dedicated to the study of Alzheimer’s disease.
The idea of the project belongs to entrepreneur Perry Cochen, who is implementing it together with a number of institutional and artistic partners, including entities associated with the Picasso legacy. The lottery has received official approval from the Parisian authorities, allowing it to be organized in a legal format.
The format of such a lottery has already proved its effectiveness. The first event took place in 2013: then Picasso’s work “L’homme au Gibus” (“The Man in the Opera Hat”) from 1914 was raffled off, and the funds raised – about 4.8 million euros – were used to preserve the historic city of Tyre in Lebanon. In the second draw in 2020, participants competed for the canvas “Nature Morte” from 1921, and the final 5.1 million euros were donated to the international humanitarian organization CARE International for projects in Africa. The painting was provided by billionaire and collector David Nahmad, who claimed at the time that Picasso himself would have approved of the idea of raffling off his works in a lottery. “Picasso was very generous, he would give paintings to his chauffeur, to his tailor,” Nahmad said. – He wanted his art to be collected by all kinds of people, not just the super-rich.”
This year’s raffle has confirmed the sustained interest in the unusual format: the opportunity to receive a world-class work for a symbolic sum is combined with a strong charitable component, attracting tens of thousands of participants from all over the world.
