Ordovas in Savile Row recently put on an exhibition around Lucien Freud’s “Portrait of Rose”, posed by one of his many daughters, the author Rose Boyt in 1977/78 when she was 18 and a student at the Central School of Art and Design. She chose the pose herself and it safe to say it is probably one most English models would not be keen to take up. Apart from anything else it was apparently very tiring on the muscles to hold for any period of time and the studio lights were hot and blinding, hence the position of her right arm and hand to shield her eyes.

All I was able to do was a very quick oil sketch using a limited palette. Beyond the pose, it captures next to nothing of the original and certainly isn’t intended to be a copy, simply an exercise. Even then I had the huge benefit that someone else, and someone else very competent, had done the very hard work of getting a difficult subject onto canvas.

Chris