(Newser)
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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.
