Early portrait denied by Lucian Freud shown for first time after authentication

Artist said Man in a Black Scarf was not his but evidence has emerged to show he painted it when a student in Suffolk An early portrait by Lucian Freud, which the artist denied was his for years, is to be exhibited for the first time after experts proved it was painted by him. Man in a Black Scarf was created in 1939 by the British artist when he was still a student at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, Suffolk. The sitter is thought to be John Jameson, a friend of Freud’s and scion of the whiskey family. The work became more widely known after it appeared on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? show in 2016, with the art historian Philip Mould concluding it was very likely a Freud. But the picture was complicated by the fact Freud had repeatedly denied the work was his before he died in 2011. In 1985, Christie’s identified it as a painting by the artist, but reversed its decision when Freud said he had not painted it. The denial appeared to stem from Freud’s personal feud with the original owners of the work, Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard Chopping, with whom he attended the Suffolk school as a teenager. “He was the golden boy, he was a star even then and there was

Jun 1, 2026 → Jun 1, 2026