Freud’s model reunited with her naked younger self
As Sophie Lawrence’s portrait is set to sell for £20m, she tells the full story for the first time
WHEN a young Tate Britain employee was asked to produce the catalogue for a Lucian Freud exhibition, she was thrilled to have the chance to work with paintings she had loved since she was a teenager.
As she came to meet the artist in person, at a dinner where their only interaction came as he looked at her staff pass and giggled, she could scarcely believe her good fortune.
The story of Sophie Lawrence, who went on to pose nude for Freud for an extraordinary eight months, can now be told in full for the first time, after she learnt her portrait is to be sold for up to £20 million.
Last week, Freud’s former muse – now Sophie Church, a married motherof-two who works as an NHS speech and language therapist – visited Sotheby’s to set eyes on her portrait.
While her name was written down for posterity as Freud painted her, little has been known about her role as the model that saw her pose for the one-off painting before never seeing him or, with one exception, the painting, again.
In the intervening 16 years, as she moved out of art world publishing to start a family and retrain, she was unaware of the painting’s fortunes, after it disappeared into private collections.
It will be sold at Sotheby’s in London, and is expected to break the record for the most expensive Freud portrait at auction in Britain.
Mrs Church, who is married to the same man she was engaged to when she posed for Freud, said of seeing the painting again: “It’s quite emotional, actually. It’s going back in time. It’s both just like me and also absolutely apart from me, and it reminds me so much of Lucian and that time. It rocked me, really.”
Mrs Church told The Sunday Telegraph her “jaw had hit the floor” after returning from choir practice to read an email from Sotheby’s telling her the painting was in their London showroom, after this newspaper launched a search to find her.
She has now spoken about her inspiring but temporary friendship with Freud, from how she won him over with her punctuality to how he invented a blue vein running down her leg as a final flourish to his painting.
Now 47, she said: “It’s just a wonderful thing to have happened.
“I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, but he is one of the best artists who has ever lived.”
In 2002, aged 31, she had been working as a deputy production manager at Tate, producing the catalogue for Freud’s exhibition at Tate Britain.
Invited for lunch with the curators, she met the 80-year-old artist – who had lost his voice – for the first time as he unexpectedly lifted her staff pass to peer at it and laugh.
Later, she presented him with a pile of books in the gallery, g y, and nd was sent to his house. “I was absolutely olutely quaking in n my boots,” she said. aid. “It was incredibly redibly intimidating, but he made me feel at ease. ase. He was very good at building a rapport.” apport.”
The unlikely pair spent pent the afternoon “drinking champagne hampagne and nd gossiping” ng” in his forest st of a garden, as the exacting Freud Fre warmed to her for her sincere apology apol at being one minute late arriving. arriving Days later, he telephone to invite her to lunch.
“I initially thought ‘oh dear, what’s all this about?’” abou Mrs Church said. “I brought up the t fact I was engaged. He was very businesslike b and said: ‘I wouldn’t mind min painting you’.
“He said ‘I think you will be reliable’ and I was. I wasn’t late once.” She went on to sit for him five nights night of every week for eight months, mon lying on a carefully-arranged arr bed from 7 to 11 on an early night and more of- ten until 1am before, covered in paint, getting a taxi home to her fiancé in Dalston. The “enchanting” Freud, who entertained her by reciting poems, singing music hall songs, talking about his family and telling stories, would take her to dinner with friends, or invite her to gnaw on grouse in his kitchen for supper.
The blue vein on her leg, Mrs Church said, was the “only part of it that’s made up”, because “he thought it all looked a bit too smooth”.
After the portrait was completed, she and her new husband travelled for a year, seeing the portrait on display just once – at the Wallace Collection. “I was very fond of him,” Mrs Church said of Freud. “At the same time, I knew I didn’t want to work with him again.
“I wanted the memories of those magical eight months; I didn’t want anything to sour that because it would have broken my heart.
“I never saw him again.
“This [painting] is going to be around for longer than I am. It’s going to endure. It’s him in there more than me. I love it.”
Portrait on a White Cover will be sold by Sotheby’s London on Tuesday for an estimated £17-20million.
‘I was very fond of him. At the same time, I knew I didn’t want to work with him again’