LONDON.- Christie's announces three important works by Lucian Freud coming from the same private collection - Self-portrait Fragment, Woman with a Tulip, and Sleeping Head – to be offered in its 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 15 October 2025. These paintings each represent a pivotal moment in the artist's career, painted between the 1940s and the 1960s and tracing Freud's artistic evolution from the precision of his early portraits to the expressive brushwork that would define his mature style. Widely exhibited worldwide, in important exhibitions such as Lucian Freud: Paintings (1987–88), which travelled to Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, Freud's posthumous retrospective at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, in 2013, and Lucian Freud: New Perspectives, the centenary exhibition at the National Gallery, London and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid in 2022-23, these works together reflect the evolution of his early years, capturing both the transformation of his technique and the intimate moments of his personal life.
Katharine Arnold, Vice-Chairman 20/21, and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Europe at Christie's: “There is a wonderful relationship between each painting; there is an arc of technique from fine sable brushes on gessoed panel to create an icon in Woman with a Tulip (1944), to a turning point in Self-portrait Fragment (circa 1956) using coarse hog's hair brushes, to the freedom of movement found in Sleeping Head (1961-1971). Of course these three paintings all correspond to three decades of the artist's life with all the changes that accompanied the passage of time: from Lorna Wishart, Kitty Garman and Caroline Blackwood to greater freedom as a single man in the 1960s. Inevitably each painting is in some way a reflection of himself, as I suspect a great deal of the artist was always latent in the paint. There is so much to be said about each painting alone: the self-portrait and the concept of positive and negative space, what it is to be 'finished', the wonderful sense of presence and soul that exists in the light behind his eyes, the fingertips pressing into the flesh of his cheek, the echoes with Caroline's look in Hotel Bedroom (1953-54). In Woman with a Tulip, it is the open frontality of Lorna's beautiful face, the devotional act of painting and placing a tulip before her, the simple wooden panel painted at the height of the War. In Sleeping Head, it is the extraordinary sense of peace implied in the trust of a woman observed while sleeping and the confidence found in the artist's new freedoms of the 1960s. We are honoured to be offering these works as highlights in our 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 15 October.”
SELF-PORTRAIT FRAGMENT, circa 1956
“We might imagine that, as he painted Self-portrait Fragment, the shock of the discovery so frightened him that he stopped work on the picture as if he had heard the sound of breathing come from the figure emerging on the canvas.” – Toby Treves
Lucian Freud's Self-portrait Fragment (circa 1956), held in the same private collection for nearly sixty years, is a rare and significant work within the artist's oeuvre. First shown at Marlborough Gallery, London, in 1968, it was enjoyed privately and remained unseen in public for forty-five years until its reappearance in Freud's posthumous retrospective at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, in 2013. More recently, it has featured in surveys at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery, London, and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Larger than life, the painting conveys both exquisite detail and raw immediacy: Freud's sharply modelled features emerge from open space, animated by richly worked brushstrokes that mark his transition from fine sable brushes to a broader, more expressive handling of paint. Painted during the breakdown of the artist's marriage to Caroline Blackwood, the work might also be seen as an image of dissolution.
Belonging to the non finito tradition exemplified by the unfinished sculptures of Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin, Freud may also have drawn on works he encountered in London collections, such as Michelangelo's The Entombment (1500–1501, National Gallery) and Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Water Jug (c. 1892–1893, Tate). Self-portrait Fragment reflects Freud's exploration of self-image: in its combination of precision and incompletion, the painting marks the evolution of his technique.
As part of a series of self-portraits tracing the artist's development over five decades, the work shows Freud's sustained scrutiny of flesh, form, and self, while offering a view of both his painterly process and psychological focus. The work also stands as a deeply introspective record of the mid-1950s, a period marked by personal upheaval and his close friendship with Francis Bacon. In Freud's centenary exhibition at the National Gallery, Self-portrait Fragment was shown alongside his portrait Francis Bacon (1956–57). This striking pairing highlighted the profound impact of Bacon on Freud's art. The two had been inseparable since the mid-1940s, meeting almost daily - carousing in Soho, exchanging ideas, and visiting one another's studios - and their artistic dialogue left a lasting imprint on Freud's work.
WOMAN WITH A TULIP, 1944
Woman with a Tulip (1944) is a defining work of Freud's early career and the first of two paintings of Lorna Wishart, one of the renowned Garman sisters, whom he described as “the first person who meant something to me.”
The other painting of Lorna by Freud – Woman with a Daffodil, 1945 – is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Painted in the precise style of his youth, it shows Wishart before the cut head of a tulip, a motif recalling devotional icons and medieval portraiture. First exhibited in Freud's debut solo show at the Lefevre Gallery in 1944, it later appeared in the Arts Council survey of 1974, the Tate retrospective of 2002–03, and most recently in Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery, London, and Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2022–23).
The painting marks a moment of personal and artistic intensity. Freud attends closely to Wishart's eyes, lips, and the tulip's curved petals. Beyond her appearance, it was her presence and character that shaped his work during their three-year relationship, informing motifs that recur in his early practice. Freud denied external influences often linked to this style, such as the German New Objectivity movement, insisting that his focus was solely on the subject.
With its piercing focus and iconic format, Woman with a Tulip foreshadows Freud's celebrated portraits of the later 1940s, such as Girl with a Kitten (1947) and Girl with Roses (1947-48), while already displaying the “involuntary magnification” of features that attracted him and defined his style during that time.
The painting recalls the clarity of Renaissance miniatures but carries a modern unease. It is both a record of an intense relationship and an important step in Freud's ongoing study of the psychological connection between painter and sitter.
SLEEPING HEAD, 1961-71
Sleeping Head (1961–71) marks a turning point in Freud's career. It shows a young woman resting on the leather sofa in his Delamere Terrace studio in Paddington. The closely cropped head is shaped with broad strokes of light and shadow, bringing out the textures of hair, skin, and bone.
First exhibited at Marlborough Gallery in 1963, the painting went on to feature in important surveys including the 1974 Arts Council retrospective and, most notably, Lucian Freud: Paintings (1987–88), the international exhibition that travelled to Washington, Paris, London and Berlin and cemented Freud's reputation as one of the greatest living painters at the time.
The painting reflects Freud's shift in the early 1960s from the precise detail of his earlier years to a freer, more vigorous style that would define his later nudes. He met the sitter in a Soho bar after returning from Greece and completed the work quickly, over six or seven sittings, with only light revisions later.
Sleeping Head shows Freud's growing confidence in using paint to capture the vitality of flesh. Though intimate in scale, it anticipates his large nude portraits, its contours hinting at the body beyond the frame. Combining stillness with close attention, the painting is both a study of repose and a landmark in Freud's development - an image where, as he later said, “the paint is the person.”
