Lucian Freud painting he denied was his is genuine and worth £300k, BBC art show Fake or Fortune? finds

Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould 'investigated Freud the man' to make their discovery

(BBC)

One of Lucian Freud’s earliest paintings has been identified as genuine by the BBC despite the artist denying he had created it.

The £300,000 masterpiece was attributed to the acclaimed 20th-century portrait artist, who died in 2011, on BBC1 show Fake or Fortune?. Fiona Bruce, who presents the programme with art historian Philip Mould, said that they approached challenging Freud’s word “with some trepidation”.

London-based designer Jon Turner had inherited the artwork of a man in a black cravat from two friends, who told him it was an early piece painted by Freud while he was at art school in 1939. Christie’s auction house named Freud the painter in 1985, but he denied it, leaving Turner to try and authenticate it himself.

It was only when Bruce and Mould spoke to the artist’s former solicitor that a breakthrough was made. The solicitor found a note in her files of a 2006 phone conversation with Freud, during which he claimed that he had started the painting but, as it was finished by someone else, he did not want to acknowledge it as his.

However, when art experts analysed the techniques and materials used in the painting, they found it to be the work of a single artist, with a panel of three Freud experts concluding that Freud had painted it, probably in 1939.

Mould, who valued the painting, said: “It was a novel and gargantuan task to overturn the reported views of the artist. It was different from anything we’d taken on until now - we had never had to arm-wrestle with the words of an artist beyond the grave.

“It was all the more frustrating as the more I worked on the picture and Fiona was able to add the background with her enquiries, the more I felt confident about it being entirely by Freud.”

Bruce added that the task involved “investigating Freud the man as much as the painting” as understanding his “extraordinary and controversial character” was key to their discovery. “Only by understanding him could we begin to understand why he would deny that a painting of his was in fact by him,” she said.

One theory as to why Freud refused to acknowledge the painting as his own involves artist Denis Wirth-Miller, who originally owned it. Freud was embroiled in a feud with Wirth-Miller and may have denied authorship to prevent him from selling it under his name.

Fake or Fortune? airs at 8pm on Sunday nights.

(Additional reporting by Press Association)