Painting Valued at $11M Is Record for Briton Freud

British painter Lucian Freud, famous for a portrait of the model Kate Moss naked, is heading for a $11 million record with a painting of a journalist that Christie’s International displayed yesterday in London.The picture of Bruce Bernard will be sold by New York collectors Elaine and Melvin Merians on June 20, Christie’s said. The valuation tops Mr. Freud’s $7.8 million “Naked Portrait” of the pregnant model and his “Red Haired Man on a Chair,” which took $8.2 million in 2005.The Merians are divesting more than $30 million of postwar British artists including Mr. Freud, Francis Bacon, and Frank Auerbach, bought over a quarter of a century, Christie’s said.“Many keen collectors are looking for a significant Freud work,” said Pilar Ordovas, Christie’s head of contemporary art in London.The 1992 portrait shows Bernard, who was a picture editor for the Sunday Times magazine, standing on the floorboards of Mr. Freud’s studio in the Holland Park area with his hands in his pockets. White rags, used by the painter to clean his brushes, are piled in a corner.Mr. Freud, born in 1922, was Europe’s most expensive living artist, based on auction prices, until Peter Doig, a relatively unknown British painter, born in 1959, overtook him.In February, Mr. Doig’s “White Canoe” fetched $11.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction. The June sale could restore the older, more eminent artist to his perch, Ms. Ordovas said. Christie’s valued the picture in a market where Bacon’s pope pictures have doubled in the past year or so, she said.Collectors of Freud include the Dukes of Devonshire, whose home in Chatsworth, England, has a painting of a horse’s rear and family pictures by the artist.A Berliner by birth, Freud is a grandson of Sigmund Freud. He served in the British Navy during World War II, and has painted full time since then. His commercial status became secure only in the past decade, with rising prices at galleries and auctions, auctioneers said.In 1992, an early Freud self-portrait could be had for $176,000, according to sale tracker Artnet AG. A Freud etching of a dog had an asking price of $140,000 at a London print fair last month. The Merians, retired business executives, bought the Bernard portrait in 1992 at Acquavella Galleries’ first Freud show in New York, said Ms. Ordovas.Their first Freud was acquired in 1978, when prices were below $20,000, she said. They traveled regularly to Britain to meet artists and bought many works from the painters’ galleries.Bernard was a friend of Mr. Freud, and sat for two portraits and an etching. A painting of Bernard seated with his fists on his thighs sold for $7 million last year to New York-based private dealer Christopher Eykyn at Sotheby’s.

Painting Valued at $11M Is Record for Briton Freud

Painting Valued at $11M Is Record for Briton Freud

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