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Maths teacher wins £1 art treasure
The sums certainly add up for maths teacher Mohammed Khan who is now the proud owner of an original Damien Hirst sketch.
Leeds City Art Gallery held the "win a Damien Hirst for a 1" raffle to raise money for Heart Research UK, the nominated charity of the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Coun Brian Cleasby.
And Mr Khan, who lives in Pudsey and is a regular visitor to the gallery, bought 60 of the 1 tickets and his punt paid off when he won the signed and dated work estimated to be worth thousands of pounds.
Mr Khan, 37, said: "I go to the gallery quite regularly on Sundays with my nephew and niece and I thought it would be worth entering.
"It was for a good cause and the prize was certainly worth it. Given that thousands of tickets were sold I'm quite surprised to have won."
Mr Khan said he hoped he could leave the sketch – which features a skull and a shark – on display at the gallery so that people could view it while he decided what to do with his prize.
He said: "I shall speak to family and friends and do a bit of research before making any decision."
Hirst, one of the world's most famous artists whose work sells for millions of pounds and who was brought up in Leeds, did the sketch and donated it to the city at the request of Dr Jeffrey Sherwin, a honorary alderman of Leeds who organised the raffle which attracted worldwide attention.
Dr Sherwin said: "The idea of winning an original Hirst work for just 1 certainly captured people's imagination. There was a great deal of interest and we sold over 6,000 tickets."
Tickets were only on sale at the gallery itself and Dr Sherwin said: "We managed to achieve both our goals. By restricting ticket sales to the gallery, it encouraged people to visit it and we also raised a lot of money for a good cause."
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Weather for Leeds
Friday 25 May 2012
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