Posted By Tom on January 4, 2012

Meller Merceux’s exhibition of works by David Freud is put in compelling focus by the record-breaking auction of a portrait by his late father. Dr John Roberts investigates…

On 13th October 2011, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction was headlined by the sale of Lucian Freud’s Boy’s Head, a striking portrait from 1952 previously held in a private collection. Freud’s painting provided the centrepiece for Sotheby’s focus on what has become known as The School of London, a term coined by R. B. Kitaj in 1976. In addition to other works by Freud, Sotheby’s auction included important canvases by other painters associated with this School, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. Reflecting the increased interest in Lucian Freud’s work since his death, Boy’s Head sold for $4.9 million, the highest sale price in the entire auction.

The small portrait depicts 20-year-old Charlie Lumley, a boy Freud had befriended, along with his brother Billy, after he had moved next door to them in Delamere Terrace, Paddington, in 1943. In a first-floor flat overlooking the Regent’s Canal, both Lumley boys posed for Freud on a number of occasions. In an interview reproduced by Sotheby’s, Charlie has since described the lengthy nocturnal sessions it took to produce Boy’s Head, all accompanied by the painter’s ceaseless repartee and bookended by wild trips into the City. The painting was produced at a time of significant stress for Freud. Lumley recalls how he had effectively been charged with ‘babysitting’ Freud after Francis Bacon expressed concern for his fellow painter’s state of mind. It was during this period that Freud began an affair with Lady Caroline Blackwood, a 21-year-old Guinness heiress, after having recently divorced from his previous wife, Kitty Garman. Sotheby’s note that the canvas for Boy’s Head was purchased in Paris, where Freud and Lady Blackwood had eloped for several months before returning to Paddington to marry the following year.

It is compelling to consider Meller Merceux’s exhibition of the work of Lucian’s son, David Freud, in light of this particular painting going under the hammer. That there should be such a demand and a high price for this portrait by Lucian Freud is perhaps not surprising, yet the added poignancy of the subject matter – evidence of a growing relationship between artist and young boy – is given additional, retrospective meaning in light of David Freud’s exploration of his own relationship with his estranged father in his ongoing work. The subject of the work is particularly apt: a portrait of a boy, executed in the same area of London into which David Freud would be born some twelve years later.

Due to Lucian’s infamously relentless observation, the boy’s distant facial expression is difficult to interpret or to age. It is somehow both youthful and weary. Its intensity suggests something of the physical and emotional demands of sitting for Freud, its complex expression, both bored and intent, given added power by the mouth being stretched open by a hand pulling at the left cheek. As is common in many of his portraits during this period, Freud paints wide, hypnotic eyes that stare out, almost in a reciprocal gesture of close scrutiny aimed toward the painter.

Categories: Artist News, Must-See Exhibitions
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