A valued friend
Two titans of British art... one £15m painting. John Vincent looks at the life of Lucian Freud.
Astrange chap was Lucian Freud. Meticulous, obsessive and fastidious in his work, his portraits were like no others in British art history – but away from the easel one of Britain’s greatest painters was seen by some as selfish, lecherous and ruthless.
As an unruly boy, he was forced out of several schools, once for dropping his pants in a public street – and while at Bryanston boarding school refused to make his bed and cut lessons to draw or go horse riding. As an adult, he never did anything by halves, gambling heavily on horses, dogs and in casinos, determined to win a fortune or lose everything. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s grandson was also a dangerous driver, frightening the life out of passengers and gaining a conviction after crashing into an ambulance in London.
A prolific womaniser, he was unfaithful to his two wives and is said to have fathered several children out of wedlock by various mistresses. Despite his bad temper, Freud was a popular personality and drew attention to himself wherever he went out by displaying a pet hawk, poised on his wrist or shoulder.
So much for Freud the disreputable man; now for Freud the brilliant artist. His pictures have seen astonishing price rises over the past 25 years... from £3.4m for Large Interior W11 in 1998 to a benchmark £35.6m for a reclining nude, Benefits Supervisor Resting, in 2015.
Time now to examine his relationship with another titan of the British art scene, David Hockney.
As you may have seen, Freud’s portrait of his friend, making its first appearance at auction, sold at Sotheby’s in London for an above estimate £14.9m, well below the record but still a fabulous price, after a tenminute battle between bidders from New
York, London and Asia. A London collector won the bidding war.
The two artists first met in 1962 through the Guinness family, when Freud was 65 and considered Britain’s greatest living painter. Hockney, still a student, later took on that mantle. Freud was almost 80 in 2002 when the Yorkshireman sat for a marathon 120 hours over four months.
The portrait shows Hockney’s face close up, warm, inquisitive, in mid-thought as he peers over his round spectacles. Freud permitted Hockney to smoke, an indulgence he had not granted an earlier sitter, model Kate Moss. Hockney’s verdict? “He made a marvellous image. All the hours I sat were layered into it. He allowed me to smoke and talk - I couldn’t have done it otherwise. We gossiped, talked about painting. It was a thrilling experience. I think Lucian enjoyed it too.”
■ At Christie’s in London, Hockney’s Still Life with Flowers and Lobster at Odin’s Restaurant, a work on paper from 1980, trebled its low estimate to achieve £934,500.
Opera buff: While on the subject of Hockney, he is something of an opera buff and one of his lithographs for the Metropolitan Opera 1981-82, signed by the artist, fetched £2,070, four times above estimate, at Bellmans of West Sussex.
Glass acts: A large pair of stained and leaded glass windows by Mayer & Coa, late 19th century, now wooden framed, realised £4,960 at Elstob & Elstob. Also in Ripon, a René Lalique glass “Victoire” car mascot, designed in 1928, sold for £1,710 and a wine bottle recovered from the wreck of a 16th or 17th century cargo ship off the British coast fetched £250.
Horseplay: A late Victorian or Edwardian lady’s rhinoceros horn riding crop with antler handle made £215 at Tennants. More serious money came for two oils by Pennine painter Peter Brook (1927-2009), Bolton Bridge and The Last of the Snow, which fetched £2,640 each at an auction of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Shining example: An 18th or early 19th century decorative arched overmantle mirror in a gilt frame, adorned with classical figures and bearing the crest of the Mellish family of Blyth Hall, Nottinghamshire, made a spectacular £11,160 at Morphets of Harrogate. A Yorkshire Pottery slipware moulded figure of a lightly-clad female standing beside an overflowing cornucopia, circa 1800, made a more modest £295.
Beer money: A set of three Carlton Ware Guinness advertising wall plaques, each modelled as flying toucans balancing pints on their beaks, sold for £360 at Tennants.
Dogwatch: A Victorian spoke-wheeled dogcart fitted with coach lamps made £340 at Hartleys of Ilkley. The light horse-drawn vehicle was originally designed for sporting shooters, with a box behind the driver’s seat to contain one or more retrievers. The dog box could be converted to a second seat.