Lucian Freud dies at 88 after unspecified illness

The British painter Lucian Freud, whose unflattering portraits made ​​him one of the most revered contemporary artists and sought after, has died at age 88.

His dealer in New York, William Acquavella, said Thursday that the grandson of Sigmund Freud and brother of Clement Freud, TV presenter and British politician, died at his London home on Wednesday night after an unspecified illness.

"My family and I mourn the loss of Lucian Freud not only as one of the best painters of the twentieth century but also as a dear friend," the dealer said in a statement.

"It was fascinating, modest, affectionate and witty. He lived to paint and painted until the day he died, away from the busy world of art," he added.

A portrait called "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" in 1995, an obese nude woman asleep on a sofa, managed $ 33.6 million at auction at Christie's in 2008, a record for any living artist.

Freud tended to paint people he knew, whether family, friends and colleagues, but also received commissions as famous for portraying Queen Elizabeth II.

The resulting portrait, a work for bleak a monarch stern look painted in 2001, divided the critics. Arthur Edwards, a photographer for the Sun tabloid said that "they should hang in the bathroom."

Freud was born in Berlin in 1922 into a wealthy German family who fled the Nazis to Britain in 1933 and whose members became British citizens in 1939.

Freud attended several art schools and presented his first exhibit in the 1940's. The artist had several relationships and believe that left many illegitimate children. [Source: allvoices.com]