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.’’
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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