Lucian Freud: Court Rules Against Son’s Request To Reveal Secret Beneficiaries List

A court has ruled that Lucian Freud’s will is to remain secret despite a challenge by his son Paul McAdam Freud. McAdam Freud one of 14 of Freud’s offspring was told by the trustees of Freud’s £96 million estate that he was not on his father’s secret list of beneficiaries.

Lucian Freud left his estate to his daughter Rose Pearce and his former lawyer Diana Rawstron. The pair later revealed that they had been charged with distributing the trust to a confidential list of beneficiaries. Of the £96 million, £2.5 million was given to his long term assistant David Dawson who featured in Freud’s last unfinished piece entitled “Portrait of the Hound”. In addition Mr. Dawson also received Freud’s Notting Hill Gate house where many of his paintings were staged, and a majority of his work completed.

Freud’s body of work follows a perceptive exploration of daily life. His paintings demonstrate that significant art can come from the acute observation of ordinary events, but in a very different way, a similar atmosphere of unease is created. He makes us aware of our sexuality, our fatness or thinness, our mortality – our nakedness.”I paint people,” Freud has said, “not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.” Freud painted many of his fellow artists, including Frank Auerbach and Francis Bacon.

Last week  a collection of paintings and drawings by Frank Auerbach belonging to Lucian Freud was bequeathed tot the nation in Lieu of taxes under the AIL scheme. It is now looking for a permanent home in public museums and galleries across the UK.

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