LEGACY OF SEX & SORROW
As artist Lucian Freud’s daughter runs off with a toyboy, how his 14 children by 6 women are haunted by his...
One would expect the daughter of artist lucian Freud — and greatgranddaughter of the father of modern psychology sigmund — to cut a Bohemian dash, and Bella Freud, 56, certainly doesn’t disappoint.
the gamine fashion designer has dumped her 72-year-old husband for an artist who is 22 years her junior.
But then a lust for life is in the genes. Bella’s father was a promiscuous, louche, charismatic and utterly selfish man who had as many as 500 lovers. His female subjects were often his romantic partners, or became his lovers after sitting for him. some went on to have children by him.
lucian married twice, and had two daughters by his first wife, Kitty Garman, none by his second, society beauty lady Caroline Blackwood, but at least 12 illegitimate children by five mistresses. some friends estimate he may have fathered as many as 40.
A ruthless seducer with no interest in conventional family life, in one year alone, 1961, Freud had three children by as many different women.
By the time he died in 2011, at the age of 88, he had acknowledged 14 children — the oldest now 69 and the youngest 33. ten of them inherited his £42 million (after tax) estate.
some were only vaguely aware of each other’s existence. so who are these children, and what is his dynastic legacy? the answer is that the Freuds are the most unlikely clan, artists galore of all different stripes, with a dizzying number of divorces, scandals and family disasters between them. Indeed, barely a single marriage has stayed the course.