Nude Portrait Expected To Fetch $35 Million At Auction

A Lucian Freud portrait of a 20-stone female benefits supervisor looks set to break the world auction record for any work by a living artist, despite the international credit crunch.

The life-size Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995) is estimated to fetch $35 million (£18 million) at Christie's, exceeding the current record of $23.56 million, held since last year by the American artist Jeff Koons.

Freud's depiction of Sue Tilley slumped asleep on a worn-out sofa with bulging flesh laid bare, is likely to excite collectors worldwide into parting with vast sums.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[loki]

penny a pound?

[larry278]

Chubby chasers say, "A fat woman & a full barn never did any man any harm.". To further garble an old saw, "Every man to his own taste said a man as he kissed a cow.".
larry lynch

[desthmoneses]

I love it, if I could afford I'd definitely buy it, it really is beautiful to my eyes

[larry278]

The Chinese make fair copies at a reasonable price. Try using Google or another search engine to find out how you can buy a copy of this work. Disclosure: I have a Chinese copy of Van Gogh's study of a garden of Dr Gachet. I enjoy looking at it. It beats an old lithograph I had.
larry lynch

[67bug]

He is an amazing painter.

[brooklyncitizen]

Maybe you can actually LOOK at Lucien's paintings...the subject is not really the point...it's all about the joys of painting abundant flesh.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/freud/

His paintings are rather disturbing.

[RubalKhali]

That must work out to $100 per square centimeter of revealed flesh.

[forpeace]

*

After all being over weight is not as bad as they say it is!

*

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Obviously this will be used as a tool to keep the owner slim and fit. Every time the owner looks at it they will throw up thus using the age old bulimic technique of loosing weight. Welcome to a slimmer you.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

What would Potter Stewart say?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

20 stone? Meet brick house.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Yiiiikes!

[drkazmd65]

I'll give them $10 just to toss a cover over it. I'm sure she is/was a wonderful person,... but that I didn't need to see immortalized as 'art'.

[brooklyncitizen]

well I guess you won't be bidding your $35M on it will you?

[outnow]

There's no accounting for taste. Having said that, art is a safe hedge against inflation. Art prices have doubled and tripled in the past six or seven years for the masters' works.

[FatherWolf]

Sounds like a boom waiting for a bust.