Lucian Freud, a towering and uncompromising... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE In this Oct. 29, 2007 photo, people look at a painting by Lucian Freud entitled, '"Boy Smoking ", dated 1951-2., part of the Simon Sainsbury Bequest unveiled at the Tate Britain gallery in London.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE In this May 3, 2007 photo, Christie's Head of Post War & Contemporary Art, Pilar Ordovas looks at a Lucian Freud 1992 painting 'Bruce Bernard' on display at the auction house in London, Lucian Freud,... (Associated Press) 
 
 A towering and uncompromising figure in the art world for more than 50 years, Freud died late Wednesday night in his London home, his New York-based art dealer said Thursday. News of his death, at the age of 88, was released by his New York art dealer, William Acquavella. He painted "until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world," his dealer, William R. Acquavella, said in a statement. The realist painter, who was a grandson of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, had watched his works soar in value over recent years and, in 2008, his portrayal of a large, naked woman on a couch – Benefits Supervisor Sleeping – sold at auction for £17m, a record price for the work of a living artist. "He certainly is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st centuries," said Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of the postwar art department at Christie's auction house in New York. "He has certainly divided critics," said Starr Figura, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. "The ones who don't appreciate him find his work hard to look at and a bit out of step with what is going on in the rest of the world. I was lucky to spend time with someone who cared so much, and who worked so hard. Born in Berlin in 1922, Freud moved to London with his parents Ernst and Lucie Freud in 1933 after Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany. He was naturalized as a British subject six years later and spent almost his entire working life based in London, where he was often seen at fashionable restaurants, sometimes with beautiful younger women, including the fashion model Kate Moss, whom he painted nude, and other luminaries. Among his most famous subjects was Queen Elizabeth II, who posed for Freud fully clothed after extensive negotiations between the palace and the painter. The colorful portrait, which the artist donated to the queen's collection, remains one of the most unusual and controversial depictions of the British monarch. He would paint with us both facing the canvas, so he'd look at me and then turn around to paint. After the war, Freud left London for several years to paint primarily in France and Greece. "One wants every picture to be better than its predecessors. The son of an architect and older brother of broadcaster Clement Freud, the painter was married to Kathleen Garman for four years. The novelist Esther Freud and the fashion designer Bella Freud are his daughters from a relationship with Bernardine Coverley. His second marriage, to Caroline Blackwood in 1953, ended in 1957.
– Acclaimed British painter Lucian Freud has died Wednesday night after a long career that saw him hailed as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Freud, grandson of the psychiatrist Sigmund, moved to Britain from Berlin as a child when his family fled Nazi Germany. He became famous for his often unsettling portraits. His "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," a portrait of a large naked woman on a couch, set a record for a work by a living artist when it sold for $33.6 million in 2008, the Guardian reports. "He certainly is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st centuries," a chairman of Christie's tells the AP. "He stayed with his figurative approach even when it was extremely unpopular, when abstraction was the leading concept, and as time moved on his classic approach has proven to be very important. He fought the system and basically won." Freud, who was 88, "painted until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world," his dealer says.