''Benefits Supervisor Sleeping'' is a 1995 oil on canvas

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

by the British artist

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. His early career as a painter was inf ...

depicting a fat, naked woman lying on a couch. It is a

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

of Sue Tilley, a Jobcentre supervisor, who then weighed about . Tilley is the author of a biography of the Australian performer Leigh Bowery titled ''Leigh Bowery, The Life and Times of an Icon''. Tilley was introduced to Freud by Bowery, who was already modelling for him. Freud painted a number of large portraits of her around the period 1994–96, and came to call her "Big Sue". He said of her body: "It's flesh without muscle and it has developed a different kind of texture through bearing such a weight-bearing thing." The painting held the world record for the highest price paid for a painting by a living artist when it was sold by Guy Naggar for US$33.6 million (£17.2 million) at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

in New York City in May 2008 to

Roman Abramovich Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (born 24 October 1966) is a business oligarch and politician. He is the former owner of Chelsea F.C., Chelsea, a Premier League football club in London, England, and is the primary owner of the private investment com ...

. Freud's painting '' The Brigadier'' was sold for £35.8 million ($56.2 million) in 2015, four years after his death, replacing ''Benefits Supervisor Sleeping'' as the most expensive Freud painting sold at auction. The painting was exhibited twice at Flowers Gallery: *1996: ''Naked'' – Flowers East at London Fields *1997: ''British Figurative Art - Part 1: Painting'' at Flowers East

References

External links

Lot Details on Christies.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benefits Supervisor Sleeping Paintings by Lucian Freud Nude paintings of women 1995 paintings Portraits of women Oil on canvas paintings Sleep