Photo: Aider les Autres

This Picasso Painting Is Being Raffled Off for Just Over $100

News Art + Architecture
by Eben Diskin Dec 17, 2019

If you’ve always fancied yourself an art connoisseur but lacked the millions of dollars necessary to actually take the plunge into collecting, this Picasso painting might be a good way to get your feet wet. Aider les Autres, a Paris-based nonprofit, is raffling off tickets to own Nature Morte, a 1921 Picasso painting, for around $111. The painting depicts a newspaper and a glass of absinthe and has been on display at the Picasso Museum in Paris. It’s valued at over $1.1 million, so the lucky raffle winner will bring home the painting for an absolute bargain.

The raffle is part of a charitable initiative to raise money for Care International. Two-hundred thousand tickets are being made available for purchase, with the aim of raising up to $22 million. While some of these funds will be used to cover the cost of purchasing the painting, the rest will be donated to the charity for the purpose of building and restoring wells, washing facilities, and toilets in Cameroon, Madagascar, and Morocco.

According to Aider les Autres, “Besides the colossal waste of time, [women and girls] are at risk as they walk alone along remote paths and tracks. Girls are also more likely to miss school because of lack of hygiene, especially during their menstruation. By providing clean water, we will increase girls’ attendance by many thousands.”

Once the raffle’s winner is selected, he or she will receive certificates of authenticity signed by the artist’s children, Maya Widmaier-Picasso and Claude Ruiz-Picasso. Representatives of his estate believe Picasso himself would have supported the raffle, as he was impoverished himself upon his arrival in Paris.

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