A selection of letters by Lucian Freud from a group of eleven, estimated at £3,000-5,000 UPDATE: THEY SOLD FOR £122,500, OVER 30 TIMES THE ESTIMATE.
Unpublished letters written by the 21 year old Lucian Freud to his girlfriend will be offered at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art day sale in London on February 13. Sent to his fellow art-student Felicity Hellaby they are peppered with wry humour and anecdotal detail, repeatedly touching on themes that would inform his later work. They will be offered alongside three drawings from the same period – all part of Felicity Hellaby’s possession since the 1940s. Here are some quotes: His work: “My life is at a very crucial stage at the moment, one day I think I am beginning to make my work how I want it to be and then I feel so dissatisfied with it that I leave the house”; Relationships: “Cedric wrote a letter to my mother, asking her to persuade me not to come down again as I was too destructive and unscrupulous.”; Wartime England: “I have just been bitten by an enormous dog in the blackout…Its [sic] very dark here and most people have scars either on their noses or foreheads from walking into posts”; His purchases: “I have bought a very large Zebra’s head it looks very strange on the wall with big glass eyes and mane going up. By far the best thing I have ever bought”.
Felicity Hellaby met the sixteen-year old Lucian Freud at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham, Essex where they were both students. The school, which was established by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, was forced to relocate to Hadleigh in Suffolk after a fire in 1940. Freud, a student there since 1939, was rumoured to have been responsible for starting the fire; it was a rumour he was happy to propagate, feeling that it only added to his growing reputation.