How depicting Kate Moss as ‘animal’ will make millions
PHIL MILLER, Arts Correspondent October 29 2004
IT is a startling image of Kate Moss, the normally waif-like supermodel, that is unlikely to feature on the cover of any fashion magazine.
Naked, pregnant, and reclining on a rumpled bed, it is an honest image of a mother-to-be far removed from the glitzy catwalks of Milan or the glossy glamour of a conventional fashion spread.
Produced by Lucian Freud, widely considered to be Britain's greatest painter, this honest portrait of the model is to be sold at Christie's in London next year.
Expected to fetch up to £3.5m, Naked Portrait 2002 was unveiled at the auction house yesterday in the run-up to the post-war and contemporary art sale in February.
The painting, almost life-size and full-length, was acquired by a private collector soon after completion. The owner has decided to sell and, as works by Freud are rarely available – and given the subject of his work – the portrait is expected to reach a considerable price.
Freud, 81, is said to have been reading the style magazine Dazed and Confused, then edited by Jefferson Hack – Moss's boyfriend – and discovered that one of her ambitions was to be painted by him.
The model, who was pregnant with her daughter, Lola, agreed to sit for the artist's protracted sessions.
For Freud, the portrait presented a "major challenge" because he prefers to paint people he knows and not professional models. Accustomed at holding poses, models are too often "hardened", according to the painter.
"They've grown another skin because they've been looked at so much," he once said.
"I'm really interested in them as animals. Part of liking to work with them naked is for that reason – because I can see more: see the forms repeating right through the body and often in the head as well.
"One of the most exciting things is seeing through the skin, to the blood and veins and markings."
Moss's verdict on Freud was succinct. "Cool," she said.
Freud began the portrait in 2001 with Moss's then slightly swollen stomach, so as to capture it in paint.
His works are highly coveted and one of the most recent sold at auction, entitled Factory in North London, fetched more than £2m at Christie's in February. The world record for a Freud is £5.8m, paid in 1998 at Sotheby's in New York for Large Interior W11.
Fernando Mignoni, a painting specialist at Christie's, said of the work on Moss: "In this portrait, the slow scrutiny and technique of the old masters meets the world of contemporary fashion, fleeting magazine covers and commercial advertising.
"Freud's art, almost fanatically devoted to the visual appearance of reality, makes a stark and intrusive contrast to the glamour of fame. Exposing everything to a cold all-pervasive light, Freud's fierce, curious and analytical gaze scrutinises the smallest of details."
that means im not gonna see her now
I don't care for it much, either.
