Owning a Picasso usually takes a fortune. This time, it will take about $120 and a whole lot of luck. France's Alzheimer's Research Foundation is raffling off a 1941 Pablo Picasso painting, "Tete de Femme," valued at nearly $1.2 million. Anyone can buy a ticket for €100 online as part of the "1 Picasso for 100 Euros" fundraiser, with proceeds earmarked for Alzheimer's research, reports the Guardian. Organizers aim to sell 120,000 tickets and raise close to $13 million. The winning ticket will be drawn April 14 at Christie's in Paris; if sales fall short of covering the painting's price, all those taking part will get their money back.
Artnet notes that this "tempting and unusual" initiative was devised by French TV producer and entrepreneur Peri Cochin, who wanted to turn the classic charity raffle into a global digital event. She approached an old friend, Picasso grandson Olivier Picasso, who then secured family and estate approval and reserved the work from Paris' Opera Gallery, which will receive about $1.2 million from the project, per the Guardian. Olivier calls the effort a "logical" extension of his grandfather's quiet generosity and says the cause is personal, given Alzheimer's growing impact as populations age.
"Tete de Femme" was created in Picasso's Left Bank studio during the World War II era, in the same space where the artist painted "Guernica." Olivier describes the portrait's palette—browns, blacks, and grays—as reflecting the strains of Nazi-occupied Paris and his grandfather's complicated personal life, including an unresolved attempt to divorce his first wife. The artist kept the painting as a memento of that period.
Cochin has run two similar Picasso raffles before, raising nearly $12 million in total. Past winners include a 25-year-old from the US who landed a drawing worth more than $1 million and later stored it at Christie's for safekeeping, as well as an Italian accountant who received a $1.2 million Picasso after being given a raffle ticket as a Christmas gift.
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