News about Lucian Freud

Paul McAdam Freud sold Reading Woman, a portrait of two nude women, at a London gallery for what is believed to be a six-figure sum. But one of his former friends, Philip Firsov, claims that he painted the original portrait, which Freud then painted over and turned into a new work.

Overview

Are Oxford and Cambridge really better than every other British university? How do the likes of Leeds, Manchester and Bristol compare? And what about up-and-coming institutions such as the University of Leicester? Today, we publish The Mail University Guide rankings for 2025 - and there are some big surprises in the results. Our guide is the most comprehensive, broadly based, in-depth analysis of the UK's leading universities you'll find. The Mail ranking is based on recent performance data in areas such as teaching and research, as well as the views of the 346,000 final-year students. Plus, we've crunched the numbers to identify universities where students stand the best chance of getting a high-skilled job when they graduate, the salaries they will earn (useful for paying off that student loan) and whether they feel, 15 months after leaving, that their careers are on track.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: A source reports that next month's A Very Royal Scandal, on Amazon Prime, will mostly upset Prince Andrew because of its portrayal of Princess Beatrice 's wedding which took place eight months after Newsnight holed Andrew below the waterline. It was a low-key affair in All Saints ' Chapel at Windsor with attendance limited due to Covid. No details were announced in advance and Andrew appears in none of the official wedding photographs.

After the death of her mother in 2002, the Queen grew more carefree, as though relieved of the burden of parental judgment. She relaxed into her role and had more fun. Ten years on, at the age of 86, she readily agreed to perform a version of herself - or a version of a version of herself - in a short James Bond film commissioned for the opening of the London Olympics. Lord Janvrin, her private secretary from 1999 to 2007, doubted she would have gone ahead with the idea had her mother been alive, 'simply because she would have felt her mother wouldn't have approved - that it would have been a bit undignified'.

RICHARD EDEN: Her life has never been hemmed in by convention - an inevitable consequence, perhaps, of being born just three months before two of her sisters who had different mothers from her own. When her father, Lucian Freud, was asked how this had happened, he famously replied with a question of his own: 'Don't you realise I had a bicycle?' Now 63, Bella Freud - the seventh of the artist's 14 known offspring - has pedalled back into her past to give a tantalising glimpse of the man who taught her so much. No, not her father, from whom her mother, Bernadine, separated when Bella and her sister Esther were toddlers, but an Italian she met when 21. 'I fell madly in love with a man 36 years older than me,' Bella recalls.

You could spot him most days if you knew where to look. An angular figure pedalling his bicycle from one palace, where he lived, to another, where he worked. Unassuming and anonymous in his cycle clips he may have been, but for 22 years Robert Fellowes knew more secrets about the Royal Family than perhaps anyone else in Britain. As the late Queen Elizabeth's private secretary, he was at the epicentre of every crisis that engulfed her during the most perilous period of her reign, from the marital and domestic upheavals of her children, to the disasters and tragedies of the Windsor Castle fire and the death of Princess Diana.

Once upon a time in mid-1984, when Mrs Thatcher was prime minister, the miners were on strike, milk came in bottles and a sliced loaf cost 45p, I achieved a lifelong dream. I scraped together enough money to buy a small terraced house minutes from Kensington Gardens.

Her father bequeathed a £96 million fortune, but has Bella Freud mislaid her own Midas touch, for the moment at least? I ask because the acclaimed fashion designer - one of 14 children Lucian Freud acknowledged as his own - is bidding farewell to what has been described as her 'luxury fragrance brand', Bella Freud Parfum. Despite selling scented candles at £50 a piece and, in a familial nod to her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud, a creation called 'Psychoanalysis Eau de Parfum' - £165 for 100ml - the company is now in liquidation. It's a rare setback for Bella who has enjoyed success in interior design, film-making and publishing, as well making clothes which enjoy a 'cult following' among the likes of Sienna Miller , Olivia Wilde and Kate Moss, - the last of whom posed, naked and pregnant, for Bella's father, with the resultant portrait selling for £3.9 million. Bella declines to comment on the fate of her eponymous fragrance business, but observers note that its parent company, Bella Freud Ltd, has itself battled through a challenging year which has seen its assets dwindle from £900,000 to just over £100,000.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: The 30-room mansion is a money pit. When the lease runs out in 2079 the property reverts to the Crown Estate. While Beatrice and Eugenie would be wiser to put their money elsewhere their dad may have an ulterior motive. Andrew would prefer to leave it to ex-wife Sarah, who occupies half of the lodge, but the lease specifies it can only be passed to his children or his widow - and the Crown Estate won't recognise a divorced wife as a widow. Despite Fergie's reservations, is it time to recycle the old confetti and re-wed Andy?

Ellie Bamber was pictured rocking Kate Moss' 2001 pixie cut on the set of the upcoming feature film, Moss & Freud, this week. The actress, 27, will star as the supermodel in the biopic with Kate, 50, herself serving as an executive producer. The film is a dramatised account of the supermodel and cultural phenomenon when, at the peak of her fame, she made the decision to sit for famed British artist Lucian Freud. 

When Kate Moss comes calling, it's advisable to answer. For Ellie Bamber , the call came with an irresistible offer - the chance to play said supermodel in a forthcoming biopic, focusing on her now iconic collaboration with celebrated figurative painter Lucian Freud. Moss was 28-years old and well established as one of Britain's most successful fashion models when Freud painted her in the nude, an arduous nine-month project carried out at the artist's Holland Park home in 2002.

Ellie Bamber transformed into Kate Moss as she was seen for the first time on the set of upcoming feature film, Moss & Freud on Monday.  The actress, 27, will star as the supermodel in the biopic with Kate herself serving as an executive producer. The film is a dramatised account of supermodel and cultural phenomenon Kate when, at the peak of her fame, she made the decision to sit for famed British artist Lucian Freud.  

There is no such thing as the typical seaside town. Some are millionaires' playgrounds, others centres of simple, olde-worlde charm. Some are loved by surfers, others best enjoyed from a deck chair, and while many are foodies' delights, some traditional towns are all about candy floss and chips. All of the towns and villages below are different. Yet each, in its own way, offers the ultimate coastal living. The Mail talked to property experts across the country who selected their favourite seaside hotspots - taking into account property prices, transport links, schools and amenities.

He is the catch of the year, probably the decade. Tall, handsome, intelligent and loyal, with warm eyes that hide a natural reserve. All this would be enough for most women, but there is more: Hugh Grosvenor, 33, the 7th Duke of Westminster, is also extremely wealthy. So the marriage next week of the country's most eligible bachelor to 31-year-old banker's daughter Olivia Henson is unsurprisingly the subject of considerable curiosity - and outright envy. For not only will the slim brunette, who most recently has been working as an accounts manager for a sustainable food enterprise, be instantly elevated to the upper ranks of the aristocracy with the title of duchess, she will also be marrying into a family fortune of £10billion, which places her husband as Britain's richest man under the age of 40.

The portrait was as unforgiving as one might imagine: it was gritty, coarse-featured, and imposing. According to one commenter, the monarch should have Freud locked up for lese majeste. However, as Brown explains, the Queen herself reflected her customary lack of personal appearance when the painting was unveiled. She remarked gnomically, 'Very interesting.'

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Julian Barnes, a novelist, has sparked rumors that eminent art critic David Sylvester demanded gifts from artists whose work he was writing about. 'Sylvester, who died in 2001, wanted two pieces from each artist,' Barnes writes in The London Review of Books.' This has enraged Sylvester's children, Xanthe and Naomi, who describe Freud as a 'p***** off' because of their father's honesty. They write: "The LRB's publication of these remarks so casually and unquestionably disgraceful," they write in a letter in the new Review.'

Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster, marries gourmet food company executive Olivia Henson in June, when the ancient pews of Chester Cathedral will be crammed with the cream of the British aristocracy. King Charles and Camilla are due to be guests, while Prince George, the 32-year-old Duke's godson, is predicted to be a pageboy. We've got all you'll need to hear about the billionaire Duke and his English rose.

EMILY PRECIOTT: Here's hoping that The Serpent actress, who wore her new boots on Instagram, recovers in time to walk the red carpet for her role as Kate Moss in the forthcoming film Moss & Freud about the model and artist Lucian Freud's friendship.

Hunter Schafer wore surrealist haute couture in a hand-painted puzzle-piece dress on Nov. 5. Schafer had her own Katniss Everdeen-inspired grand entrance in a crochet midi dress that gave the appearance of paint dripping down her body while attending the "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" premiere in Berlin. Dara, her stylist, completed the look with a pair of white pointed-toe heels. Although the outfit didn't peak, the ensemble nevertheless grabbed our attention from all angles as Schafer strutted down the red carpet. The dress was created from mosaic-like pieces of painted paillette embroidered on crochet netting, and it was inspired by artist Lucian Freud, who specialized in figurative art. The inventive work is supposed to be a trompe-l'oeil reversal of a woman's body, according to the designer's website. In addition to the melting effect along the sleeves and hemline, the look also includes subtle rhinestone detailing along the edge of each irregularly shaped segment. The avant-garde ensemble, created by Daniel Roseberry, made its debut in Schiaparelli's Fall 2023 haute couture runway show.

Queen Elizabeth (right), who died a year ago in Balmoral, Scotland, at the age of 96, was unashamed to display her sense of humour. FEMAIL reveals her most amusing scenes from being in a scene with James Bond (top right), filming a scene with Paddington Bear (top right), and cutting a cake with a sword (bottom right).

EMILY PRESCOTT (left) is no stranger to a Royal wedding; after all, he arranged best friend William's stag-do. Now Guy, 41, Prince Louis' godfather, is staging services at the vineyard in Virginia he owns with Holiday Inn heiress wife, Lizzy Wilson (right). 'It took us a long time to get to the point of being aware of the idea,' Pelly, who is shown below on the website with American Lizzy, tells me.' We have a beautiful farm and want to share it with the world. So, although we may not be excited at the prospect of hearing Sweet Caroline every Saturday night from our back porch, we do understand we are hosting the biggest day of two people's lives.' And that feels good!'

Joe Lewis, the owner of Spurs, is seldom seen at Spurs games, but rather enjoys a life of luxury on his luxurious yacht sailing through the Caribbean. Lewis, a self-made billionaire from the East End of London, is a reclusive businessman who lives mainly in the Bahamas aboard his £113 million boat, Aviva. According to Forbes Rich List, he has a £4.3 billion fortune, allowing him to make full use of his money and invest in a number of flashy facilities. One of these, his superyacht, is believed to be his home for the majority of the year and has been referred to as his private office. Lewis is able to use a full tennis court below decks, as well as a pool, gym, and a large sundeck. However, after being charged for 'brazen' insider trading, the reclusive 86-year-old was thrust into the spotlight in the United States yesterday. Federal prosecutors have alleged that he obtained inside information 'to compensate employees'.

Tottenham Hotspur majority owner Joe Lewis was charged in the United States with 'brazen' insider trading on Tuesday night. Federal prosecutors have accused the British billionaire of passing on inside information 'as a way to compensate his employees or shower gifts on his acquaintances and couples.' Lewis is charged with more than a dozen criminal charges, including securities theft, and he's also accused of loaning money to the people he's accused of tipping off.