Arts & Culture

Lucian Freud, one of the 20th century's great portrait painters, died this past week.  At the end of his life, he had held the record for the highest price paid for a work of art by a living artist with the 2008 auction of "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" which sold for $33.6 million.

Lucian Freud was a grandson of Sigmund Freud. When you look at his portraits you cannot help but feel the psychological insight he had into his sitters must have been genetic somehow.   His subjects came from all walks of society ranging from his famous/infamous portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to unemployed and working class people.  His handling of flesh and face is less Renoir and more Rubens or late Rembrandt.  He was a meticulous workman and his sitters spoke of the time committment and energy it took to sit for him – the many months of day after day posing. 

He was also a notorious womanizer and fathered many children by several women.  He painted some of his daughters clothed and nude (they explained sitting for him was a way of being with him) while having had distant relations with others.  Although possibly best known for his female nudes, he also painted many male nudes as well, with the same physicality and uncompromising eye, as his women.