Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Resting sells for $56 million at Christie's

A Lucian Freud painting of a 280-pound woman has set a world record for the artist by selling for $56 million at Christie's in New York. The 1994 painting was sold to a London art dealer on behalf of an anonymous buyer. Freud, who died in 2011, painted Miss Tilly – who he nicknamed ‘Fat Sue’ – four times.

• http://www.christies.com/features/Lucian-Freuds-Benefits-Supervisor-Resting-5994-3.aspx

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping

Benefits Supervisor Resting

Sue Tilley (right)

Benefits Supervisor Resting is the second in a series of four paintings featuring Sue Tilley, which Freud undertook over a three-year period beginning in 1993. The following painting in the series, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, was sold by Christie’s in 2008 for $33.6 million, making it—at the time—the most expensive painting by a living artist ever to be sold at auction. All four paintings have become some of the most celebrated in Freud’s oeuvre and were selected in recent years for the 2012 critically acclaimed retrospective of the artist’s portraits organized by London’s National Portrait Gallery.