#270 SHE IN THE SHEETS38”x 33” oil on canvas. $2700 + GST The first time I saw Lucien Freud’s art was on the cover of a book in a bookstore. There was a glorious overweight woman reclining on a sofa, “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” (1995). Wow, was my first impression. She was painted in a brutal manner, not unlike his portrait of Queen Elizabeth. This is Freud’s style, coarse thick paint strokes, with layers of paint one over the other. I posed for the “ She in the Sheets” long before opening the studio to the public. It is a private image. At the National Gallery in London I saw a Caillebotte (1848–1894) painting “Man Getting out of Bath” which I thought looked very much like a Freud. Later the same year I saw the Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) show in the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Nudes with Patricia Preece and the strange work called “The Leg of Mutton Nude” (1937) were both very much like Freud’s later paintings. Throughout the history of art I see references to other works. This is exactly the point of ON BEING DIDACTIC.