Lucian Freud - Market Review

May 2010

Lucian Freud's unblinking scrutiny of the human form has redefined European portraiture and nude traditions, making him at age 88, the foremost figurative artist living and working today. The uniqueness of Freud's work lies in his meticulous treatment of his model and his hauntingly beautiful interpretation of human flesh through thick impasto and densely scraped surfaces - as Freud says: "I want paint to work as flesh. As far as I am concerned the paint is the person."

On show now, the Centre Pompidou's retrospective survey Lucian Freud: L’Atelier (10 March – 16 July 2010) is Freud's first exhibition in France since 1987 when the Pompidou last held a retrospective of his work. The excellent exhibition showcases fifty large scale works around the theme of the artist's studio and groups together all periods and genres (portraits, landscapes, still lifes) of Freud's artistic career thus far. Undoubtedly, the current retrospective will act as a catalyst for a rise in Freud's market value; a trend noted after his last retrospective at the Tate Modern (London) in 2002, which saw Freud's prices fetched at auction jump by 185%.

Following the Tate Modern retrospective, in 2004, Lucian Freud became a regular name at major sales and his auction revenue went up by a phenomenal 450%. One year later, Freud made his first appearance in the Top 10 artists by revenue with a total of $28.5 million, ranking him at number three in the world.

The summit of Freud's success in the secondary market was in May 2008, when he became the most expensive living artist to be sold at auction; 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' (1995) which famously depicts an obese, naked woman sold to Roman Abramovich for a record breaking $33.6 million at Christie's New York.

Following the global economic crisis, art market analysts listed Freud as one of the preferred Blue-chip contemporary artists for buyers to invest in, alongside William de Kooning, Alexander Calder, Sol le Witt and Cy Twombly. In 2009, no sale of Freud's work manage to garner a result above the $1 million mark however this was simply because auction houses were unable to obtain any major Freud works as sellers feared selling their artworks at a loss. With the restoration of art market confidence in 2010 Freud's artworks are once again achieving significant results - Sotheby's (10 Feb) sold 'Guy and Speck' for over $2 million and the diminutive (18 cm high) 'Self-Portrait with a Black Eye' fetched $4.4 million. These excellent results set a precedent for major Freud sales for the rest of the year and put him on track to once again enter into the world's Top Ten achieving artists. 

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