Artist Freud uses his talent to help Brighton charity (From The Argus)

Artist Freud uses his talent to help Brighton charity

7:00am Sunday 17th March 2013 in News By Neil Vowles

Growing up on a crime-ridden south London estate, David Freud lived a very different existence to his famous, absent, father Lucian.

Now, the 48-year-old Worthing-based artist is using his early anger to help a charity supporting youngsters cut free from society.

He said his own upbringing had given him a strong affinity with the young people supported by the Brighton-based charity A Band of Brothers.

He painted for 24 hours on Friday, March 15, to create portraits, which are expected to fetch up to £25,000 each for the charity.

Father's shadow

Mr Freud, who was one of 14 children fathered by the notoriously promiscuous painter, had no contact with his father for 20 years while he was growing up and only met some of his half-brothers and sisters for the first time at his father’s funeral in 2011.

He told The Argus yesterday that his all-night painting at The Thistle Hotel in Kings Road, Brighton, was the first time he had painted through the small hours since a death-bed portrait of his father.

He said: “My father was quite a solitary man, not really a family man.

“He got on with what he was doing.

“When I was growing up I resented painting for taking my father away from me.

“My mother moved away to a council estate where I was brought up which had high crime and with a lot of children who are similar to the sort of people A Band of Brothers helps.”

Daunting

The family name brings a heavy burden of legacy, not only from David’s father but also his uncle, the writer and politician Clement Freud and his great-grandfather Sigmund Freud.

Mr Freud, who admitted he only felt confident enough to exhibit his work after his father’s death, said: “It is very daunting following in the footsteps of my father but I have grown used to it.

“It’s very difficult having a famous father. The job of a child is not to overcome a father, especially when they are so good at what they do, but I try and put that all to the back of my mind and enjoy the moment.”

Mr Freud was introduced by Brighton-born artist Danny Ager to the charity, which works with some of the most prolific repeat offenders in the city in a bid to turn their lives around.

Three paintings were auctioned live on Friday night and six more put up for an online auction which will close on April 2.

To bid, visit www.15thMarch.com or for more information on A Band of Brothers go to www.abandofbrothers.org.uk.

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