Colin and Chris Weir, winners of Europe's largest ever lottery jackpot, are sending a young art student from Scotland to the Florence Academy of Art for free.
Lee Craigmile's desire to bring the Academy's renowned realist painting techniques back to Scotland inspired the couple to offer him a £50.000 sponsorship for his tuition and living expenses in Florence.
Craigmile wrote to the Weirs about his dream of training at the Academy, known for its strict emphasis on naturalist drawing and painting fundamentals, after learning of their recent individual gifts, including a prosthetic limb for a teenager who lost his leg to a rare form of cancer.
After Craigmile's three-year program, he plans to teach the lessons he will have learned from the Academy on anatomy, tone, materials, and artistic discipline in the style of the Old Masters back in his native Scotland, where he currently takes art classes at night.
After the Weirs won £161 million in the EuroMillions jackpot last July, they catapulted above Ringo Starr on the Sunday Times rich list.
Craigmile plans to present two pieces from the collection he debuted last week, centring on portraits and nudes based on classical body shapes and sculptures, to the Weirs to thank them for their sponsorship.
