Lucien Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” Might Break Auction Record For Any Living Artist

Lucien Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” might end up being auctioned off as the most expensive painting by any living artist. It’s predicted to go for $35 million -naked lady boobies- dollars. Freudian slip!:

The Freud painting, which dates from 1995 and is appearing at auction for the first time, depicts a rotund civil servant from London, Sue Tilley, now 51, sleeping on a dilapidated sofa. She had been introduced to Freud by the Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery.

At 20 stone she seemed an unlikely choice of muse for an artist, but Freud has spoken of his “predilection towards people of unusual or strange proportions”. Referring to the woman he affectionately calls “Big Sue”, he said that he was “very aware of all kinds of spectacular things to do with her size, like amazing craters and things one’s never seen before”.

Freud, 85, first used Ms Tilley as a model for a painting titled Evening in the Studio (1993), for which she had to lie in an uncomfortable pose on a bare floor. He then bought the ragged sofa on which she is shown lying in the 1995 painting.

“I think he probably picked me because he got value for money,” Ms Tilley once joked. “He got a lot of flesh.” She believes that he was inspired by her “ordinariness”.

If the art world loves this painting, they’re probably all creaming their jeans over Jenny Saville. Would it be TMI if we admitted to wanting to crawl into her bellybutton and just rest there for a while? Probably, right? Nevermind then.

Lucien Freud’s naked civil servant to smash auction record for work by living artist [Times Online]