Picasso painting being raffled off for $111 for charity
Picasso's painting will be raffled off in March
Want to own an original piece of artwork by Picasso for only $111? This may be your only chance.
Pablo Picasso's 1921 painting "Nature Morte" is being raffled off for charity on March 30 for just over $100, a bargain when compared to the millions of dollars the famous Spanish painter's work regularly goes for.
Charity auctionhouse Aider les Autres (French for "Help the Others") is selling raffle tickets for the Picasso painting, which depicts a newspaper and a glass of absinthe, for a mere €100, which is about $111 in USD. The work has been on display at the Picasso Museum in Paris, and has been valued at a price of €1 million, or around $1.1 million, according to the organization.
The auctionhouse plans on selling 200,000 raffle tickets for a chance to win the priceless piece of art, with all proceeds going to Care International, a humanitarian agency.
ORIGINAL PICASSO PRINT STOLEN FROM MILWAUKEE ART GALLERY
The auction date was initially set for Monday, Jan. 6, but it was postponed until March "in order to maximize the funds collected, so we can deliver on our promise to bring clean water to 200,000 people in Madagascar, Cameroon and Morocco," according to the website 1 Picasso for 100 Euros.
Care International will be using the funds to build and restore wells and washing facilities and toilets in the three African countries to help curb water-born diseases.
Picasso's grandson, Olivier Picasso, believes that his grandfather would have approved of the idea to raffle off his artwork for humanitarian causes if he were alive today. Olivier Picasso told the Telegraph that when Picasso arrived in France, he had to burn his own paintings for heat and in turn became "very concerned about helping people" after his experiences with poverty.
"I think he would have been very happy," Olivier Picasso said of the charity raffle. "I hope he would have been proud."
Picasso's painting "Les femmes d'Alger" sold for a record-breaking $179.4 million back in 2015, the most a Picasso work has ever sold for at auction, according to the Telegraph.