Guy Gets $1M Picasso for $140

US raffle winner plans to hang it on his wall
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 18, 2013 11:14 PM CST
Updated Dec 19, 2013 7:03 AM CST
Guy Gets $1M Picasso for $140
Picasso's 1914 Cubist drawing L'homme au Gibus, Man with Opera Hat, is presented at Sotheby's auction house in Paris.   (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

A lucky American art fan who had been looking for something new for his wall now has a $1 million Picasso to fill the space. Jeffrey Gonano, project manager at a fire sprinkler firm, was among 50,000 people who bought $140 tickets in a raffle for the artist's 1914 "Man with Opera Hat," a small drawing from the artist's Cubist period. "I was looking for art and I thought I might as well," Gonano tells Reuters. The raffle, which had the blessing of Picasso's grandson, raised funds to help save the ancient Lebanese city of Tyre. (More Pablo Picasso stories.)

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