Lucian Freud was so jealous of Francis Bacon that he bought one of his most celebrated paintings for just £80 and refused to let it be seen in public, just to infuriate his rival, it has been claimed.
Bacon’s 1953 masterpiece Two Figures depicts two nude men on a bed. Freud bought it at a reduced price after the painting failed to sell at auction and then refused to let it be borrowed by any museums, even when the Tate hosted a retrospective of Bacon’s work in 1985.
Barry Joule, a close friend of Bacon’s from 1978 until the painter’s death in 1992, recorded a conversation they had about the picture. Bacon can be heard recalling how the art critic David Sylvester had sold Two Figures to Freud for £80.
Bacon says: “I had to give £20 of it to Sylvester as a commission and I got £60 for it, I think . . . You see how things are.” Mr Joule said that Bacon then gave a “sad triple shrug of his shoulders”.
He told The Observer: “Freud stashed it away in his house. He later was to put his jealousy knife into Francis as he never, ever allowed this important picture to be borrowed, which mightily [upset] Francis, especially as he wanted it for his 1985 Tate retrospective.”
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The painting was inspired by a photograph taken by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1880s of two men wrestling.