Art News: No Freudian Slip

The world's record price for a painting by a living artist was set yesterday when the life-sized nude of a largish woman by Sigmund Freud's grandson was sold to an unknown buyer for $33.6 million at Christie's in New York.

Titled "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," the 1995 work by the 85-year-old Lucian Freud portrays Sue Tilley, now 51, reclining on a dilapidated sofa.

The money, the Freudian connection, the ample nudity, the subject's working class status may suggest a confluence of 21st century cultural themes, but the art world sees the sale only as a hopeful sign of vitality in the face of a slumping world economy. It reflects, according to a Christie's official, the "incredibly healthy" state of the art market.

Recognized as one of the world's great painters, Freud has been a subject of notoriety before. His recent unflattering portrait of Queen Elizabeth was widely criticized. "It makes her look like one of the royal corgis who has suffered a stroke," the editor of an art journal complained.

But another subject, supermodel Kate Moss, painted nude and pregnant in 2002, was quoted as saying she found the artist, then 80, "very cool." Her portrait was sold at Christie's two year later for 3.9 million pounds.

The Queen, Kramer and Other Celebs

Amid all the glum stuff, some major news has been, as they say on the Daily Show, falling through the cracks:

*In a shoot, celebrity photographer Annie Liebovitz tells Queen Elizabeth to lose the crown--it would look better, “less dressy.” The Sovereign is not amused and asks with annoyance, ”Less dressy--what do you think this is?” In earlier times, a beheading might have ensued.

*Kramer is cooling it in Cambodia. After his comedy-club expletive outburst, Michael Richards is finding peace at daily spiritual seminars conducted by a Hindi monk known as Swami G., who is "on a mission to re-establish the science of inner bliss on planet Earth." Kramer, minus his slide step, will be touring temples and visiting Angkor Wat.

*It won’t be featured on the “Weddings” page of the Sunday New York Times, but Osama bin Laden’s fourth-eldest son Omar, 27, has married a 51-year-old British grandmother. They "met cute" while she was riding a horse near the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Jane Felix-Browne, who has had five previous husbands, is trying to get a visa for her newest, who is working as a scrap metal dealer in Saudi Arabia.

*Once home to William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davis, the most expensive U.S. residence is for sale in Beverly Hills. Asking price: $165 million. On 6.5 acres, it has 29 bedrooms, three swimming pools, tennis courts, a state-of-the-art movie theater and disco. The current owner, an attorney, is looking for a “lifestyle change.”

If there’s a theme here, it escapes me.

Love, Actually

Anglophilia is hard to resist. Like a Hugh Grant-Richard Curtis movie, the British just can’t help charming us.

After politely following our lead into Iraq, they are now getting out in their understated way by quietly withdrawing their troops and disposing of Tony Blair.

Less stodgily, they are stoking nostalgia this weekend by re-creating Woodstock--music, mud and all. In Glastonbury, 175,000 of their young are sloshing around in what, for most of us, evokes memories of a happier time:

"Many party-goers had been up all night at the silent disco, where revellers plug into personal stereos to listen to dance tunes. The aim is to dance the night away in silence...

"Another big attraction overnight was at the King's Meadow where Banksy, an anonymous graffiti sensation who has rocked the art world, had erected a mock version of the Stonehenge prehistoric site out of graffiti-strewn mobile toilets."

More than two centuries after the unpleasantness between us, the British are still colonizing our spirit. When that boob George Bush is gone, come back, Your Majesty, and bring along the young princes. We’ll have a ball. A dignified one, of course.