It's rather like going to an old-fashioned British seaside
> resort to discover at the beach a portly lady out of picture postcard,
> in a floral dress, swinging a huge handbag, emerging wringing wet from
> the waves calling 'Yoo-hoo, it's me, your Auntie Mabel. THAT WHICH I
> AM I AM. I'm over here'
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
or Big Sue:
http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=8298490
- shows her picture:
A life-size Lucian Freud painting of a naked Jobcentre supervisor sleeping
broke the world auction record for a work by a living artist when it sold
for more than £17 million, Christie's said.
The masterpiece, which was sold by a private European collector, fetched
33.6 million dollars (£17.2 million) in the sale at New York's Rockefeller
Centre.
Benefits Supervisor Sleeping beat the previous world auction record for a
work by a living artist, held by Jeff Koons' Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold),
which fetched 23.5 million dollars (£11.3 million) last year.
The 1995 Freud painting depicts rotund London benefits supervisor Sue
Tilley, now 51, sleeping on a dilapidated sofa.
Ms Tilley, now a Jobcentre manager, said: "I'm thrilled. I still can't
believe such a bizarre thing has happened to me. It hasn't sunk in
properly."
Asked how she felt about posing nude, she said: "At first, I was a little
bit embarrassed but after a while I just got used to it and it became a
completely normal thing to do, like going to the doctor."
She also said reports claiming that she had weighed 20st when she posed for
the painting were inaccurate and said she did not know how much she weighed
today. "I never weigh myself because I can't be bothered," she said.
Asked if she would ever sit for another artist, Ms Tilley said it was "hard
to know where to go" as she had "started with the very best".
It was the first time Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, which was the
highlight of Christie's New York Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale,
had appeared at auction.
The 85-year-old British artist first painted "Big Sue" in Evening In The
Studio (1993), for which Ms Tilley had to lie in an uncomfortable pose on a
bare floor. Freud then bought the ragged sofa depicted in the 1995 painting
for Ms Tilley, who was introduced to Freud by Australian performance artist
Leigh Bowery, to lie on.
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