On a usual Tuesday in Paris, a 58-year-old sales engineer got a life-changing phone call that left him stunned: he was the winner of a rare 1941 Pablo Picasso painting valued at $1 million, secured with just a €100 ($117) raffle ticket.
Ari Hodara, a self-described art lover and lifelong admirer of Picasso, told reporters he struggled to process the news immediately after the draw, which was held at the iconic Christie’s auction house in the French capital. His first reaction? Questioning whether the win was too good to be true. “How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” he asked organizers, revealing he planned to share the incredible news first with his wife, who was still at work when he got the call. When asked about his future plans for the masterpiece, Hodara said he intends to hold onto the work for now to enjoy it.
Hodara stumbled on the charity initiative entirely by chance: he learned of the raffle while dining at a local restaurant over the weekend, and purchased his ticket on a whim. This raffle marks the third edition of the popular “1 Picasso for 100 euros” initiative, which has combined art philanthropy and public engagement to support charitable causes around the world.
This year’s winning work, *Head of a Woman*, is a gouache-on-paper portrait of Dora Maar, Picasso’s well-documented longtime muse and romantic partner, completed by the Spanish artist in 1941. The online raffle was open to entrants globally, and organizers confirmed that all 120,000 available €100 tickets sold out, generating a total of €12 million ($14 million) in revenue.
Of the total proceeds, €1 million will go to the Opera Gallery, the international art dealership that owned the portrait. Gallery founder Gilles Dyan explained that the organisation offered the piece at a heavily discounted preferential rate — the public market value of the work is actually €1.45 million.
This is not the first time a rare Picasso work has been raffled for charitable good. The inaugural 2013 edition awarded *Man in the Opera Hat*, a 1914 Cubist-period work by Picasso, to a working man from Pennsylvania who owned a fire-sprinkler business. The second raffle, held in 2020, gave away the 1921 oil-on-canvas *Still Life*, which went to an Italian accountant named Claudia Borgogno — her son had purchased the ticket as a Christmas gift for her. That work was sourced from billionaire art collector David Nahmad, who told the Associated Press he believed Picasso would have wholeheartedly approved of his work being used to fund charitable efforts. Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, died in 1973.
All proceeds from the third raffle will fund Alzheimer’s research, through the Alzheimer Research Foundation, the event’s organizer. Headquartered at one of Paris’ leading public hospitals, the foundation was established in 2004, and has since grown to become France’s largest private funder of medical research focused on Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions. The two earlier editions of the Picasso raffle already raised more than €10 million combined, funding cultural preservation initiatives in Lebanon and clean water and sanitation programs across Africa.