Benefits Supervisor Sleeping

Last updated

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, Lucian Freud, 1995. Benefits Supervisor Sleeping.jpg
Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, Lucian Freud, 1995.

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping is a 1995 oil on canvas painting by the British artist Lucian Freud depicting a naked woman lying on a couch. It is a portrait of Sue Tilley, a Jobcentre supervisor. [1]

Tilley is the author of a biography of the Australian performer Leigh Bowery titled Leigh Bowery, The Life and Times of an Icon. Tilley was introduced to Freud by Bowery, who was already modelling for him. Freud painted a number of large portraits of her around the period 199496, and came to call her "Big Sue". He said of her body: "It's flesh without muscle and it has developed a different kind of texture through bearing such a weight-bearing thing." [2]

The painting held the world record for the highest price paid for a painting by a living artist when it was sold by Guy Naggar [3] for US$33.6 million (£17.2 million) [4] at Christie's in New York City in May 2008 to Roman Abramovich. [5]

Freud's painting The Brigadier was sold for £35.8 million ($56.2 million) in 2015, four years after his death, replacing Benefits Supervisor Sleeping as the most expensive Freud painting sold at auction. [6]

The painting was exhibited twice at Flowers Gallery:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucian Freud</span> British painter and engraver (1922-2011)

Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leigh Bowery</span> Australian artist and fashion designer (1961–1994)

Leigh Bowery was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, and fashion designer. Bowery was known for his conceptual, flamboyant, and outlandish costumes and makeup, as well as his live performances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henrietta Moraes</span> English model and memoirist

Henrietta Moraes was a British artists' model and memoirist. During the 1950s and 1960s, she was the muse and inspiration for many artists of the Soho subculture, including Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Maggi Hambling, and she was known for her three marriages and numerous love affairs. She left her first husband, Michael Law, and married actor Norman Bowler, with whom she had two children. She later married the Indian writer Dom Moraes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cedric Morris</span> British artist

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings and landscapes.

Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000 was an international exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2000–2001 that exhibited a painting representing each year of the 20th century. A book of the same name was published by the National Portrait Gallery by Robin Gibson with an introduction by Professor Norbert Lynton that illustrates all works exhibited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Yeo</span> British artist (born 1970)

Jonathan Yeo is a British artist of contemporary portraiture who was educated at Westminster School. He rose to prominence for having painted Kevin Spacey, Dennis Hopper, and Cara Delevingne, among others. GQ described him as "one of the world's most in-demand portraitists."

<i>Diana and Actaeon</i> (Titian) 1550s painting by Titian

Diana and Actaeon is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Titian, finished in 1556–1559, and is considered amongst Titian's greatest works. It portrays the moment in which the hunter Actaeon bursts in where the goddess Diana and her nymphs are bathing. Diana is furious, and will turn Actaeon into a stag, who is then pursued and killed by his own hounds, a scene Titian later painted in his The Death of Actaeon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bettina Shaw-Lawrence</span> English painter

Bettina Shaw-Lawrence, also known as Betty Shaw-Lawrence, was an English figurative artist. Shaw studied painting and drawing under Fernand Léger, Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, though she was mainly self-taught and worked professionally until the early 1980s.

Sue Tilley, also known as Big Sue, is a British artist's model and writer. She modelled for painter Lucian Freud.

<i>Diana and Callisto</i> Painting by Titian in London and Edinburgh

Diana and Callisto is a painting completed between 1556 and 1559 by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her maid Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter. The painting was jointly purchased by the National Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery for £45 million in March 2012. Along with its companion painting Diana and Actaeon it is displayed on an alternating basis between London and Edinburgh. There is a later version by Titian and his workshop in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Celia Paul is an Indian-born British painter. Paul's mainly known for her impressionistic work, which she developed during her education at the Slade School of Fine Art. Paul lives and works in London, England.

<i>Portrait of Kitty</i> Painting by Lucian Freud

Portrait of Kitty is a painting by Lucian Freud of Kitty Garman, his wife and the eldest daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein and Kathleen Garman. Completed between 1948 and 1949, this oil on board measures 35 by 24 centimetres.

Jacquetta Jean Frederica Eliot, Countess of St. Germans is the third daughter of Miles Wedderburn Lampson, 1st Baron Killearn. She is his first daughter by his second marriage, to Jacqueline Aldine Leslie, daughter of Marchese Senator Aldo Castellani.

<i>Three Studies of Lucian Freud</i> Oil-on-canvas triptych by Francis Bacon

Three Studies of Lucian Freud is a 1969 oil-on-canvas triptych by the Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon, depicting artist Lucian Freud. It was sold in November 2013 for US$142.4 million, which at the time was the highest price attained at auction for a work of art when not factoring in inflation. That record was surpassed in May 2015 by Version O of Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger series.

<i>Triptych, 1976</i> Triptych by Francis Bacon

Triptych, 1976 is a large triptych painted by the British artist Francis Bacon in 1976. It comprises three oil and pastel paintings on canvas. It is the second most expensive Bacon ever sold, after Three Studies of Lucian Freud, being auctioned for US$86 million in 2008.

An Evening with Lucian Freud is a 2015 play written by Laura-Jane Foley. It is a one-woman show with video cameos based on a real life encounter the playwright had with the artist Lucian Freud. The play made its world premiere on 19 May 2015 at the West End's Leicester Square Theatre where it ran until 6 June 2015.

Laura-Jane Foley is a British playwright and art historian. Her play An Evening with Lucian Freud played at the Leicester Square Theatre in 2015. She is a former lecturer at the University of Cambridge in History of Art and Creative Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Freud</span> English poet and artist (born 1948)

Annie Freud FRSL is an English poet and artist. She is the eldest child of the artist Lucian Freud, and his first wife Kitty Garman. Earlier in her career, she was a civil servant. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024.

The Brigadier is a 2004 oil on canvas painting by the British artist Lucian Freud (1922–2011). It is a larger than life seven foot high portrait of Andrew Parker Bowles. In 2015 the work sold at auction at Christie's in New York City for $34.89 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitty Garman</span> English artist

Kathleen Eleonora "Kitty" Garman, later Kitty Epstein and Kitty Godley, was a British artist and muse. She was a model for her father Jacob Epstein, her first husband Lucian Freud, and Andrew Tift. In 2004 she had her own show at The New Art Gallery Walsall.

References

  1. Tilley, Sue (16 May 2015). "I didn't set out to be Lucian Freud's muse". The Telegraph. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  2. National Portrait Gallery, Exhibition booklet for Lucian Freud Portraits, 2012, Section VII
  3. "Art on the move - FT.com". Archived from the original on 9 September 2015. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  4. "Freud work sets new world record". BBC Online . 14 May 2008. Retrieved 14 May 2008.
  5. Adams, Stephen (18 May 2008). "Roman Abramovich 'revealed as Freud and Bacon buyer'". The Daily Telegraph . London. Retrieved 18 May 2008.
  6. "Lipstick, Leigh Bowery and me… by Lucian Freud's £35m muse – Hull UK City of Culture 2017". Hull UK City of Culture 2017. Archived from the original on 22 May 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2017.