Sales engineer Ari Hodara wondered if it was a hoax when he got a call after the draw at Christie’s auction house in Paris
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListenAssociated PressPublished: 3:44am, 15 Apr 2026A Parisian man could not believe his luck on Tuesday when he found out he had won a Pablo Picasso painting worth US$1 million with a US$117 raffle ticket.
“How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” said Ari Hodara, 58, after organisers called him following the draw at Christie’s auction house in the French capital.
Hodara described himself as an art amateur fond of Picasso and said he bought his ticket over the weekend after finding out about the charity raffle by chance during a meal in a restaurant.
“First, I will tell the news to my wife, who has yet to return from work,” said Hodara, a sales engineer. “And at first, I think I’ll take advantage of it and keep it.”
The third iteration of the “1 Picasso for 100 euros” lottery was for Picasso’s Head of a Woman, a portrait of Picasso’s long-time muse and partner Dora Maar. The gouache-on-paper was painted by the artist in 1941.
The online draw offered the chance to win a US$1 million portrait by the Spanish artist in aid of Alzheimer’s research.
