Famous painting by Lucian Freud is expected to sell for about $5.6 million when it goes up for auction on February 10 from Sotheby’s. Created in 1978 (Freud was 60), the painting was said to have been the aftermath of a fight with a London cab driver who was taking him to a studio, whom he punched in the face after an altercation. “I used to have a lot of fights. It wasn’t because I liked fighting, it was really just that people said things to me to which I felt the only reply was to hit them,” he once declared in an interview. “The freshness of my black eye presents too good an opportunity to paint myself in this condition.” And thus, a masterpiece was born. For a long time, the painting was kept secret, and was unknown to scholars because it hadn’t been kept in a public record or book about the artist.
“This is the first opportunity anyone has had to buy a Freud self-portrait from his mature period; it’s a great, great collecting moment,” said Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s senior international specialist in contemporary art.
Via: Luxury Insider
