Freud work sells for record £17m

A Lucian Freud painting of a naked Jobcentre supervisor sleeping has broken the world auction record for a work by a living artist.

The lifesize work was put up for sale by a private European collector, and fetched £17.2 million in a sale at New York's Rockefeller Centre.

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping beat the previous world auction record held by Jeff Koons' Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold), which fetched £11.3m last year.

The 1995 Freud painting depicts Sue Tilley, now 51, sleeping in the nude on a dilapidated sofa.

The 85-year-old British artist was introduced to Ms Tilley by Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery.

She posed for Freud for four years in the early 1990s, and has said in the past of being his muse: "I think he probably picked me because he got value for money. He got a lot of flesh."

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."

It was the first time the painting, which was the highlight of Christie's New York Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, had appeared at auction.

The painting was described as a "bold and imposing example of the stark power of Freud's realism".

A Christie's spokesman said: "This picture is a simple and seemingly uncomposed depiction of one of the key features of Freud's art - the forceful and undeniable physical presence of people and things."

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