A new Sotheby’s auction record was set for artist Lucian Freud as his "Portrait on a White Cover" sold for £22.5 million, around $29.8 million, at the Contemporary art sale at Sotheby’s in London on June 27. However, the figure still remains well below the highest amount paid for a Lucian Freud at any auction. The highest was $56.2 million forked out by the winning bidder for "Benefits Supervisor Resting” (1994) at Christie’s in New York in 2015."All portraits are difficult for me. But a nude presents different challenges. When someone is naked, there is in effect nothing to be hidden. You are stripped of your costume, as it were. Not everyone wants to be that honest about themselves. That means I feel an obligation to be equally honest in how I represent their honesty,” said Lucian Freud in “Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open,” Seattle 2014.Sotheby’s says, "Freud was 80 years old when he commenced ‘Portrait on a White Cover,’ and he had already achieved almost all that one could as an artist. In the 2000s alone, Freud was the subject of exhibitions at the Tate, the Venice Biennale, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. His group of sitters and subjects was similarly illustrious, and included Queen Elizabeth II, who he painted between 2000 and 2001.”Alex Branczik, Head of Contemporary Art for Sotheby’s Europe, says, “by the turn of the millennium, Freud was widely acknowledged to be Britain’s greatest living painter. However, even in the face of such plaudits, he refused to succumb to a late style, to allow his works to soften or loosen. The present work is testament to this refusal. Across fifty years of painting the reclining nude, Freud was leading up to this point.”
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