Sue Tilley (born 1957), also known as Big Sue, is a British artist's model and writer. She modelled for painter Lucian Freud.
Born in south London,[1] Tilley worked for performance artist and club promoter Leigh Bowery as a cashier at his "Taboo" night club. Bowery introduced her to Lucian Freud in 1990 and she began posing for him the following year. During this time, she was also a full-time benefits supervisor at the Charing Cross jobcentre, a state-operated employment agency, and she eventually became manager there.[2]
Freud painted several large nude portraits of Tilley, the first being Evening in the Studio [de] (1993).[3]Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, painted in 1995, was sold at auction in 2008[4] for £17 million ($33.6 million US) in New York City.[5] In 2015, the 1994 painting Benefits Supervisor Resting[6] sold for £35 million ($56 million US).[7] A fourth painting Sleeping by the Lion Carpet was painted in 1996.[8] Freud also produced a number of etchings featuring Tilley, including Woman with an Arm Tattoo which Tilley sold in 2005.[9]
In 1997, she published Leigh Bowery: The life and times of an Icon, a biography.[10]
From September 2000 to March 2001, Chief Curator Rolf Lauter at Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt could realise the only overview exhibition of Freud's works in a German museum in close cooperation with the artist. Both the catalog and the invitation as well as the poster included Freud's painting Sleeping by the Lion Carpet[11] from 1995/96 with Sue Tilley.
In 2015, she had a solo show of paintings and drawings in a London gallery. She did a collaboration with Fendi to decorate luxury clothes and bags with her pictures of desk lamps, bottle openers, banana skins, cups of coffee.[12]
In September 2021 Tilley was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 show Saturday Live.[13]
^"Leigh Bowery: The Life And Times Of An Icon By Sue Tilley Now Available As An Ebook From Open Road Integrated Media".
^"The ballad of Big Sue". the Guardian. 30 June 2005.
^"Evening in the Studio, 1993 - Lucian Freud - WikiArt.org". www.wikiart.org. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
^"Lucian Freud portrait of naked benefits supervisor set to sell for £17m". the Guardian. 12 April 2008.
^"Roman Abramovich 'revealed as Freud and Bacon buyer'". www.telegraph.co.uk.
^Laux, Cameron (14 May 2018). "Lucian Freud and Sue Tilley: The story of an unlikely muse". BBC.
^Glover, Michael (29 July 2011). "Great Works: Sleeping by the Lion Carpet 1995-6 (228.6cm x 121.3cm), Lucian Freud". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
^"Freud tattoo model etching sold". 28 June 2005 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
^"Leigh Bowery: A life less ordinary". The Independent. 22 October 2011. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.
^Lauter, Rolf (ed.). "Lucian Freud: Naked Portraits. Works from the 1940s to the 1990s, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 2000/2001". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
^Laux, Cameron. "Lucian Freud and Sue Tilley: The story of an unlikely muse". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
SueTilley (born 1957), also known as Big Sue, is a British artist's model and writer. She modelled for painter Lucian Freud. Born in south London, Tilley...
artists. A series of huge nude portraits from the mid-1990s depicted SueTilley, or "Big Sue", some using her job title of "Benefits Supervisor" in the title...
depicting a naked woman lying on a couch. It is a portrait of SueTilley, a Jobcentre supervisor. Tilley is the author of a biography of the Australian performer...
Victor; Tilley, Christopher (2002). The Material Culture Reader. Oxford: Berg. ISBN 1-85973-559-2. Bender, Barbara; Hamilton, Sue, and Tilley, Christopher...
landscapes of Leskernick over several seasons (Barbara Bender; Sue Hamilton; Christopher Tilley and students). In a programme shown in 2007 Channel 4's Time...
Lucian Freud's famous painting of SueTilley. It is described as inverting the male gaze and "re-frame SueTilley, the subject of Freud's Benefit Supervisor...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
outfits featured in a 'Cavalcade of the 80s' fashion show curated by SueTilley (muse to Lucian Freud and friend of Leigh Bowery), organised by Wayne...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
"Floods". UKTV. Retrieved 4 January 2012. Bender, Barbara; Hamilton, Sue; Tilley, Christopher (2008). Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape...
Peter Blake, Gwendoline Christie, Will Self, Maura Tierney, Graham Swift, SueTilley, Molly Parkin, Tuppence Middleton, David Nicholls, Ed Stoppard, and Curtis...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
number that continually gets interrupted by Leigh Bowery and his friends (SueTilley and Nicola Bateman, later Nicola Bowery), who keep walking over to a table...
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. pp. 244–76. Bender, Barbara; Hamilton, Sue; Tilley, Christopher (2007). Stone Worlds. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press...
(grandfather) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Related Leigh Bowery (model) SueTilley (model) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967 painting) Three...
– 'Too Fabulous' with an accompanying video on YouTube which featured SueTilley Benefits Supervisor Sleeping. Too Fabulous was performed at Lovebox Festival...
Sue Ellen Leurgans is a biostatistician known for her work on disorders of human movement, including those caused by occupational injury and Parkinson's...
Henry Samson George Soule Myles Standish Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland John Tilley Joan (Hurst) Tilley Richard Warren Peregrine White Resolved White Susanna...
included Karen Hines, Cheryl Cashman, Nion, Tantoo Cardinal, Sue Morrison, Sara Tilley and the duo Mump and Smoot. Pochinko was gay, and was the partner...
to landscape, collaborating with Sue Hamilton and Christopher Tilley. In the late 1990s, Bender, Hamilton and Tilley developed a landscape research project...
which he received, but he also sought the dismissal of Tilley. The college refused to punish Tilley (though he resigned as Junior Tutor) and Ross dropped...
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