When children in more than 140 countries mailed their drawings to a hotel ballroom in Dubai, they were told the artwork would help fund their education and health care.
In 2021, British artist Sacha Jafri auctioned what was then the world's largest canvas painting, The Journey of Humanity, for $62 million in support of children's charities. Painted on the ballroom floor of the Atlantis hotel over seven months of the pandemic, the canvas was split into 70 lots for sale. They were all bought together by André Abdoune, a French national living in Dubai who runs a cryptocurrency business.
Jafri's team had asked children around the world to send paintings about isolation and connection, which were printed and layered onto the canvas as the foundation of the composition. He worked on the piece over seven months in 2020, and Guinness World Records certified it as the largest art canvas ever made. Jafri's original aim had been to raise $30 million by selling sections of the 1,800-square-metre surface, but Abdoune bid for the entire work. The final figure ranked as the third-highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist.
Proceeds were supposed to be split between UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Global Gift Foundation, but over five years later, the money has still not been disbursed.
Not a cent.
Dubai Cares, the UAE-based organization responsible for receiving and distributing the funds, filed a legal case against Abdoune in 2022 for failing to deliver on his promised payment, as first reported by Fence Magazine. Initially, the organization also accused Jafri of unlawfully seizing the painting and exploiting the charity, but a judge dismissed those claims. Abdoune was reportedly ordered to pay the charity the money owed. The case remains ongoing.
UNICEF confirmed to the Times it had not received any money to date, while UNESCO said it had been gifted $1.9 million from Dubai Cares in 2022, with "no indication of whether or not this donation was made possible directly by the charity auction." Abdoune did not respond to requests for comment.
Jafri, for his part, has denied any wrongdoing. "My role in this was as the artist," he told the Times. "I created The Journey of Humanity and gave it for a charity auction in good faith and for the causes it was meant to support." He counts among his collectors Madonna, George Clooney, and Bill Gates. King Charles commissioned him to paint portraits of the 14 most influential living Muslims for the Mosaic initiative.
Sotheby's was originally set to stage the auction at Atlantis, but the house pulled out at the eleventh hour. Its logo, printed on all the save-the-dates, reportedly remained visible throughout the sale. Celebrity endorsements from Deepak Chopra, Eva Longoria, and Huda Kattan accompanied the event. One art collector in Dubai quipped the morning after: "It's all money-laundering."
Beyond failing to pay, Abdoune has also come up short on his promise to build a museum in Dubai on government-provided land to display the painting. Its current location is unknown. So is any timeline for resolution.
What remains certain is simpler and harder to sit with. Thousands of kids drew pictures about how they felt during a pandemic. Those drawings were folded into a record-breaking canvas. Proceeds were meant to fund children's education, health care, sanitation, and digital connectivity. Five years on, the promises attached to their art are stuck in a courtroom, and the organizations named as beneficiaries are still waiting.
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