A woman who posed naked for British artist Lucian Freud revealed on Saturday that she was paid US$39 — and the resulting painting is expected to become the most expensive work by a living artist.
Sue Tilley said she had been delighted to be the inspiration for Benefits Supervisor Sleeping in 1995, which is set to become the most expensive painting by a living artist when it is sold in New York next month.
Art experts expect the painting of a fleshy woman reclining on a sofa to fetch up to US$33.5 million when it goes under the hammer in New York next month.
PHOTO: AP
Tilley, nicknamed Big Sue, joked she was the first nude pin-up to grace the front page of the Financial Times newspaper, which carried a photograph of the painting on Saturday.
“I can’t quite believe it, to be honest,” she told the BBC.
“Half the time I don’t really think it’s me. But then this morning I was looking at it again and I was going: ‘that’s my funny little face!’”
PHOTO: AP
Freud, the 85-year-old grandson of pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was born in Berlin but his family fled Germany as the Nazis rose to power and he became a British citizen.
Teen idol Mischa Barton was sentenced to three years probation on Thursday after pleading no contest to drink driving charges following her arrest in December last year, court officials said.
The 22-year-old former The OC star did not appear at a brief hearing in Beverly Hills where she also received a US$2,000 fine and was ordered to attend a three-month alcohol-education class.
Drug possession charges against the actress were dismissed after Barton’s plea deal, court officials said.
Barton had been caught in possession of marijuana when she was arrested in Hollywood on Dec. 27 after police spotted her driving erratically.
“Mischa’s glad the case has been resolved,” lawyer Anthony Salerno said after the hearing, praising prosecutors in the case as “very fair.”
Though best known for hit teen television show The OC, London-born Barton’s film credits include cameos in hit movies The Sixth Sense and Notting Hill.
A lawsuit filed on Friday against a Hollywood photo agency says two of its paparazzi supplied actor Heath Ledger with cocaine so they could secretly videotape him snorting the drug in a hotel room two years ago. The suit says footage of the Ledger encounter, a portion of which aired briefly on two US television shows days after his death in January — prompting an outcry in Hollywood — was sold to media outlets around the world, some in Britain and his native Australia.
In other legal news, US pop star Madonna is expected to appear in a Malawian court in about two weeks for a final ruling on whether she can adopt a child from the southern African country, court clerks said on Friday. “Tentatively the case is expected in court on these dates — the 22nd, 23rd and 25th (of April),” said one of the clerks, who asked to remain anonymous.
Tough conditions should be attached to the adoption, a human rights group said Friday, warning unscrupulous traffickers may use the case to justify illegal adoption.
Maxwell Matewere, a spokesman for the Human Rights Consultative Committee, which attempted to legally challenge the controversial adoption, said a Malawi court should attach “tough guidelines” if it grants Madonna permanent custody.
Matewere warned Madonna’s controversial adoption of toddler David Banda could allow others to take advantage of Malawi’s lack of inter-country adoption laws.
“Others might apply to adopt and use the Madonna case to justify adoption and yet they could be illegal adoptions for trafficking, organs and sexual exploitation,” he warned.
Nona Beamer, a noted authority on Hawaiian culture and matriarch of the musical Beamer family, has died. She was 84.
Beamer, a songwriter, performer, hula teacher and author, died peacefully in her sleep early Thursday at her home on Maui, said Mark Nelson, administrator of Aloha Music Camp, which Beamer founded and operated with her son, Keola, a Grammy-nominated slack-key guitar artist.
Nelson said he and Keola Beamer were on tour, the remainder of which has been canceled. Keola Beamer and his wife have returned to Maui.
“In her own very humble, gracious and truly remarkable way, Aunty Nona was not only a pioneer … musician and humanitarian, she truly is the embodiment of aloha,’’ Nelson said.
Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Desha Beamer was born in Honolulu and raised in Napo’opo’o in South Kona on the Big Island. She was of Hawaiian, German, French, Scotch and Swedish ancestry. Her Hawaiian name is an ancestral name that comes from Princess Manono and means precious flower.
“It wasn’t until I was about 70 that I felt I was doing good as a Hawaiian,’’ she said in 2003. “Now I can be proud to be a Hawaiian.’’
Behind a car repair business on a nondescript Thai street are the cherished pets of a rising TikTok animal influencer: two lions and a 200-kilogram lion-tiger hybrid called “Big George.” Lion ownership is legal in Thailand, and Tharnuwarht Plengkemratch is an enthusiastic advocate, posting updates on his feline companions to nearly three million followers. “They’re playful and affectionate, just like dogs or cats,” he said from inside their cage complex at his home in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Thailand’s captive lion population has exploded in recent years, with nearly 500 registered in zoos, breeding farms, petting cafes and homes. Experts warn the
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