Exclusive: Win your very own Picasso for just a few $$$

 A few years ago Whispers attended an exhibition of paintings by the legendary Pablo Picasso at the Art Gallery of NSW. What struck us at the time was so many of the more famous ones were actually quite small.

Who owns a Picasso in Sydney.? Well the late famed Sydney architect Harry Seidler (right)  had one on the wall  just outside his bathroom at his amazing apartment at Kirribilli overlooking Luna Park as Whispers discovered at a party there many moons ago. (That was a small one as well.)

Now you too can own a Picasso by buying a ticket for 100 Euros or approx $A163 in this ambitious lottery. 

And it's all for charity by   who will use funds raised to build and rehabilitate wells, washing facilities and toilets in villages and schools in Cameroon, Madagascar and Morocco. 

# Or you could just donate to the charity but remember- 
You Have To Be In It To Win It !!

Below: some snaps from the Picasso exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery including Ros Packer with MP Simon Crean.

### Pablo Picasso's  Nude, Green Leaves and Bust  (right) sold for a mere  $106.5Million in 2010.

To buy a ticket to win your own Picasso go here:

https://1picasso100euros.com/pages/painting

# Whispers has been unwell but has crawled back from death and defeated The Devil (or was it God?) and thus has sadly disappointed so many of our 1000s of readers especially in Russia and the USA with our intermittent reports on Sydney Society (intermittent itself at the best of times)  

But we are back with a vengeance !

Vale Margaret Olley

Margaret Olley, Portrait in the mirror, 1948

It's been just four months since Australia's much loved artist Margaret Olley attended the controversial Archibald Prize when the portrait of her by artist Ben Quilty won Australia's richest art prize for portraiture.

Dobell's portrait of Olley

But it was also the second time a portrait of Margaret had won the Archibald-the first was in 1948 when William Dobell took the gong and launched he and Olley on the road to art celebrity.

Margaret with Ben Quilty in April

Today Margaret passed away at the age of 88 in her Paddington terrace. She'll be sorely missed. No event at the NSW Art Gallery was complete without Margaret shuffling through the crowd with her walking frame-bell ringing incessantly if anyone dared to momentarily impede her trajectory.

Olley was an icon who held over 90 shows during her life. Her paintings brought the largest price for an Australian living artist and she leaves a legacy of work behind, painting right up until the end. She also left a mass of works to the NSW Art Gallery, nearly seven million dollars worth and donated her own collection of masters including 3 Cezannes and a Picasso. When she purchased the Cezanne at auction in London she thought it looked rather lonely so snapped up 2 more saying "three makes a better statement".

Olley never married and once said in an interview that she liked to be "a one-woman band, too independent to be subservient to anyone". She loved helping new young talent and to that end has left a trust fund of a million dollars to assist budding young painters.

Our favourite Oligarch returns !

Another fleeting visit from our favourite Russian oligarch-although to the Moscow crowd of his contemporaries he's considered a 'baby oligarch' with just a small fortune by comparison-$2.9B.

Rustam Tariko is a vodka merchant with a taste for fine art and an eye for beautiful women. The 44-year-old is the owner of Russian Standard Vodka and a bank, the sources of his wealth. With his rapidly growing empire he is fast becoming one of Russia's most successful entrepreneurs.

Tariko hit the headlines in early May when he was outed as the buyer of Pablo Picasso's Dora Maar with Cat. He paid more than $150 million for the canvas.

He was in London for the Russian Economic Forum earlier this year, when he spoke on the theme of luxury as a Russian national idea. He should know. His dog, Dow Jones, wears a Louis Vuitton collar, goes on holiday with him to Sardinia, and has its own "nanny".

On Tuesday evening he hosted a vodka shindig at Ivy in the city. As with his visit earlier this year Miss Russia accompanied him and like last time, Rustam left straight after the party for the airport where his jet was waiting. Presumably Dow Jones was also waiting onboard.

We like Rustam's parties. There's always a generous gift bag with a selection of vodkas.