The subject of one of Lucian Freud's defining masterpieces has expressed her hope that the portrait will demonstrate that big girls can achieve great things, as the painting goes up for auction with an estimated value of up to £35 million. The artwork, titled Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, will be offered for sale for the first time as part of The Lewis Collection at Sotheby's in June.
The portrait, painted between 1995 and 1996, depicts Sue Tilley reclining nude on a leather couch. It is expected to fetch between £25 million and £35 million. The painting required nearly nine months to complete, with Tilley posing for the late artist approximately three times a week during her late 30s. She described the experience as very pleasurable, involving sitting, eating, and being in the presence of the most important artist in the world.
Now 62, Tilley was working as a full-time benefits supervisor at the Charing Cross Job Centre and as a nightclub cashier when she was introduced to Freud in 1990. Speaking to the Press Association, she said: 'It shows all those skinny girls that big girls can do well as well. I feel like I'm an example for big women to show themselves off. It's good that it's different. If everyone looked the same, it'd be boring, wouldn't it?'
Although she had studied at art college, Tilley admitted she initially did not realise how famous Freud was and simply thought posing for him sounded like an interesting experience. She hopes audiences will appreciate Freud as a marvellous painter, particularly for his ability to observe humans as they are. She added: 'That's what I'm like and that's what you have to accept, that all humans are different. Everyone's got different things about them and they should be championed rather than brushed under the carpet.'
Regarding Freud's artistic approach, Tilley noted: 'He was just devoured by it and I think people make up stories about what he meant by his paintings, but all these paintings really are him testing himself. Sometimes the feet look really big, or the hand, because that's perspective from your eyes, and he was testing himself all the time to make himself better and be able to do that better, and understand people.'
Tilley revealed that Freud would not paint any part of the composition without her presence, as her presence affected the space and the way light reflected on different aspects of the room. She described her first sitting as physically agonising because she had to lie naked on cold floorboards in a draughty studio. According to Tilley, Freud refused to paint her again for a year after their first session because she returned from holiday with a tan, as he disliked anything artificial and insisted models appear completely natural without make-up or dyed hair.
The painting is one of four monumental canvases Freud created of Tilley between 1993 and 1996. Sotheby's describes the final portrait as one of Freud's defining masterpieces and the final and most ambitious work in his quartet of portraits of the former benefits supervisor. It will be the first time the painting appears at auction, having been acquired directly from the artist at the time it was painted.
The last time a major painting from this series came to auction, it made history: Freud's 1995 portrait Benefits Supervisor Resting sold for £35.9 million, breaking a record at the time for both Freud and any living artist. Freud was introduced to Tilley via their friend the late Leigh Bowery, a performance artist and fashion designer who also featured in several of Freud's early paintings from the 1990s.
Tilley recalled that her favourite part of the day was going out to lunch with Freud, during which he would openly stare at strangers to study their appearance. She also revealed that she was later diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy and radiotherapy.
The painting will be on display from June 10 to June 23 as part of Sotheby's The Lewis Collection exhibition, which includes works by Klimt, Modigliani, and Matisse. Following the exhibition, the pieces will go up for sale from June 24 to 25, with a combined estimated sale exceeding £150 million, making it the most valuable collection ever offered in the UK, according to Sotheby's.
Oliver Barker, Sotheby's Europe chairman, said: 'If figuration is the beating heart of The Lewis Collection, then Freud is its lifeblood. Intimate and monumental in equal measure, drawing on the great traditions of the past but at the same time radically new and inventive, full of emotional and painterly complexity, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet is a masterpiece by any measure. It is, quite simply, one of the greatest portraits of the 20th century, if not in the entire history of Western art: the Mona Lisa of the modern age.'
