British painter Lucien Freud's 1995 painting, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," recently fetched $33.6 million at a recent auction at Christie's in New York City. It was apparently the largest auction price offered for a living artist's work. Model Sue Tilley was pleased with the painting, and called it "lovely". This powerful depiction of a fat woman reclining on a couch has drawn attention not only because of the model's size, but because Freud portrays flesh in a particularly intense way. Art critic Robert Hughes in 1993 described it as, "A heavy mass like cream with gravel in it." Another observer said, "You can die in the folds of his paint."

Freud also painted the large male body. Hughes goes on:

Since the late '80s, Freud's work has become more audacious in its ability to deal with extremes of physical presence without sliding into caricature. In part this is due to his finding a new model in the form of Leigh Bowery, a huge, soft, hairless, child-faced, pierced-cheeked performance artist who might, in earlier days, have modeled Bacchuses for Rubens. Freud's paintings of this man-mountain are done in a spirit not far from amazement: his excitement in traversing Bowery's back in "Naked Man, Back View, 1991-92," is so palpable that you'd think he was exploring a new landscape -- as, in fact, he was.

Performance artist and transvestite Leigh Bowery (1961-1994) was one of Freud's favourite models. As it happened:

The artist became fascinated by this strange figure - the shape of his body, tone of his skin and his monumental presence. Freud prefers to know his models well in order to portray them most effectively. He made several paintings of Bowery over a period of four years, during which time they became friends. It was a relationship of mutual inspiration, as Freud considered his model to be ‘perfectly beautiful’ and Bowery loved to pose for Freud. (link)

When I first saw a picture of one of Freud's paintings ("Naked Man," below), I recall an almost physical shock. He is often called a "realist," but to me many of his images are hyper-realistic. It's as if he can evoke a kind of synesthesia; in his bare, yellow-walled rooms, you can almost smell the damp wallpaper paste, the sweaty post-coital flesh, or hear the creak of a man's massive limbs as he sits upon a wide soft ottoman.

It's interesting, too, how Bowery as a performer was often covered entirely in the most extraordinary costumes, and yet under Freud's brush he was entirely naked - as if Freud peeled away all the complex and elaborate layers, to reveal something almost tender and vulnerable in the man beneath.



"After the Bridegroom"


Leigh Bowery models for "Naked Man, Back View, 1991-1992"


Leigh Bowery posing for the 1994 "Leigh Under a Skylight"