Exhibitions

Swipe for more images

Press Release

LUCIAN FREUD’S PROFILE DONEGAL MAN

TO BE OFFERED FOR SALE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Dickinson is delighted to announce that Lucian Freud’s Profile Donegal Man will be exhibited at Frieze Masters 2023 as a highlight of the gallery’s exhibition Artists in SOHO: Lawrence to Freud.

Considered one of Freud’s greatest late career portraits, Profile Donegal Man (2008) was recently included the exhibition Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at London’s National Gallery and the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.

Lucian Freud was introduced to the legendary Irish property developer Pat Doherty through mutual friend Andrew Parker-Bowles, himself the sitter in another of Freud’s most memorable portraits. Freud and Doherty became close friends and used to meet for dinner once a month. Doherty initially resisted sitting to Freud but ultimately relented, expecting the portrait to involve no more than three or four sessions; but in the end, the process involved 100 sittings. “I used to go round to him every Saturday morning from 8.30 to 11.30,” Doherty recalled. “He’d spend about two-thirds of the time talking.’’

Profile Donegal Man was acquired by Doherty directly from Freud. Frieze Masters 2023 will be the first time the work is offered on the open market.

Freud’s painting will be the highlight of Dickinson’s Frieze Masters exhibition Artists in SOHO: From Lawrence to Freud. This show will explore the impact of Soho on the arts scene in London from the gin-induced stupor of the 18th Century to the grittier atmosphere of The Colony Room Club in the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition will feature works by artists who had their studios in Soho, such as Sir Thomas Lawrence, as well as examples by those who spent many hours occupying the neighbourhood’s bars, clubs and music halls, such as Keith Vaughan and Lucian Freud.

About Dickinson:

Established in 1993, for the last thirty years Dickinson has been one of the world’s leading private art galleries handling exceptional works of art across categories from Old Masters to Impressionist and Modern art.

Dickinson has forged close connections both to leading private collectors and to institutions worldwide, and we have sold to over thirty museums internationally, among them the National Gallery, London, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Dickinson is now a second-generation family business, with father and son duo Simon and Milo Dickinson uniting to create a gallery combining unrivalled and passionate art expertise and a unique understanding of the ever-changing art market. Dickinson has access to artworks which are rarely available on the public market and will remain the first stop for art lovers and collectors who wish to acquire works from private collections in a discreet and professional fashion.