Picasso to be raffled off
But a $145 ticket for charity, take home a masterpiece
PARIS — A Picasso valued at $1 million is the prize in an unprecedented Christmas charity raffle being held online.
The cubist work Man in the Opera Hat was bought by an anonymous donor from a New York gallery and given to a charity working to save the ancient city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.
About 50,000 tickets have been on sale at www.1picasso100euros.com for the raffle on Dec. 18 at Sotheby’s in Paris. The UNESCO-registered charity hopes to raise more than $7 million, with tickets costing $145. All but 10,000 of the tickets have already been sold.
Olivier Picasso, the painter’s grandson, described the work, painted in 1914, as a “masterpiece” in perfect condition and said he fully sup- ported the raffle. “Buy a ticket and enjoy a double pleasure,” he said. “The first one will be to help a really interesting project and the second one is, hey, maybe to get a Picasso on your wall.”
Picasso said he felt sure his grandfather would have supported the raffle, the first time that a work from a painter of this calibre has been raffled. The charity, the International Association to Save Tyre, wants the money to develop a traditional handicraft village giving young people, women and the disabled jobs in Tyre and to set up an institute for Phoenician studies in Beirut. Reem Chalabi, the project co-ordinator for the charity, said: “Who can get a Picasso usually or a piece of art? Not a lot of people at that value. So we have seen a lot of people buying three and four and five tickets.”