LONDON, England (CNN) — A picture of an overweight
woman lying naked on a couch, painted by British artist Lucian Freud,
set a record Tuesday night for the most money paid for a painting by a
living artist.

The 1995 life-size work, "Benefits Supervisor
Sleeping," fetched $33.6 million during bidding at Christie’s auction
house in New York. The previous record was for "Hanging Heart," a
painting by Jeff Koonz that sold for $23.5 million, said Rik Pike, a
spokesman for Christie’s.

"Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" depicts
Sue Tilley, a manager of a government-run job center in London, lying
on her side on a worn-out couch with nothing to hide her folds of flesh.

Christie’s
calls it a "bold and imposing example of the stark power of Lucian
Freud’s realism," depicting "the forceful and undeniable physical
presence of people and things."

Tilley, 51, said she was
initially embarrassed to pose naked for the artist, but they soon grew
comfortable in the studio — so comfortable, in fact, that she
confessed to falling asleep while posing.

"I didn’t mind if he noticed," she said.

The
painting challenges modern notions of beauty and elicits a reaction
from everyone who sees it. That may have been precisely the aim of
Freud, who told London’s Tate Gallery in 2002 that he wanted his
paintings to "astonish, disturb, seduce, convince."

Though some
regard the painting as shocking — ugly, even — that is also the
appeal for collectors, said Michael Hall, editor of Apollo Magazine in
London.

"There’s a reaction against art that’s regarded as too pretty," he said.

Hall said he thinks a more conventionally beautiful painting would not be able to fetch such a large amount.

"It’s
the sort of thing that everyone immediately wants to voice an opinion
about," he said of the painting. "It challenges conventional taste …
and people do find that rather exciting and interesting to talk about."

Collectors may also view this as a rare chance to buy something by a prolific artist painted at the peak of his work, he said.

Freud,
85, has been described as Britain’s greatest living realist painter. He
is the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and came to London from
Germany when he was a child.

With Tilley, Freud said he was "very
aware of all kinds of spectacular things to do with her size, like
amazing craters and things one’s never seen before," according to the
2002 interview with the Tate. He added, "I have perhaps a predilection
towards people of unusual or strange proportions, which I don’t want to
over-indulge."

Freud painted the portrait of Tilley over nine
months in 1995. Tilley said she posed for eight hours a day, two or
three days a week.

She had been introduced to the artist through
a mutual friend, Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery, who also
posed for Freud. It was Bowery’s idea for Tilley to pose for Freud, so
he arranged a meeting.

Tilley knew the meeting was more of an
interview for the job of Freud’s muse, and she didn’t find out until
later — through Bowery — that she’d gotten the job, she said.

"Lucian just said to Leigh, ‘Oh, tell Sue she can start next week,’ " Tilley said.

Tilley
still works full-time at the job center in London’s West End and calls
her newfound fame "a bit bizarre." She laughs as she describes how she
now has to arrange her schedule to accommodate media interviews.

She said she’s excited to find out how much the painting will sell for, but knowing that it could set a record is "a bit scary."

"It’s hard to put your head around it, really," she said. "But it’s all good."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/05/13/freud.art/index.html