Lucian Freud, 88, a towering and uncompromising figure in the art world for more than 50 years, died Wednesday at his London home, his New York- based art dealer said Thursday.
Freud was known for his intense realist portraits, particularly of nudes. In recent years, his paintings commanded staggering prices at auction, including one of an overweight nude woman sleeping on a couch that sold in 2008 for $33.6 million.
Freud stubbornly refused to follow the trends of the art world, insisting on using his realist approach even when it was out of favor with critics and collectors. He developed his own style, eventually winning recognition as one of the world’s greatest painters.
Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, a leading pioneer of modern psychoanalysis. He was born in Berlin in 1922 and moved to London with his parents in 1933. He spent almost his entire working life based in London, where he was often seen at fashionable restaurants, sometimes with beautiful younger women, including fashion model Kate Moss, whom he painted nude, and other luminaries.
Noel A.M. Gayler, 96, an ace combat pilot during World War II who served as President Richard Nixon’s first director of the National Security Agency and retired as commander of all forces in the Pacific at the drawdown of the Vietnam War, died July 14 in Alexandria, Va.
Gayler, the son of a Navy officer, was one of the most highly decorated Navy pilots of World War II. He went on to hold many distinguished posts, including service in the office of the chief of naval operations and as a senior aide to the secretary of the Navy.
During the late 1960s, his job was to pick strategic targets in Russia in the event of a possible nuclear attack. From 1969 to 1972, he was director of the National Security Agency, the country’s code-making and code-breaking apparatus based at Fort Meade, Md.
Denver Post wire services
