English-German painter Lucian Freud was BOTD in 1922. Born in Berlin, the son of architect Ernst Freud, his grandfather was the celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Following the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, he and his family emigrated to England in 1933, settling in London. He studied at the Central School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College, becoming as well-known for his bisexuality as for his drawing talent, living for a time in a ménage-à-trois with fellow artists John Minton and Adrian Ryan. Settling more or less happily into heterosexuality as an adult, he maintained a wide circle of queer friends, becoming a regular at Muriel Belcher‘s Colony Club in Soho with fellow artist and notorious homosexual Francis Bacon. Along with Bacon, Freud became a star of the post-World War Two British painting scene, earning praise and celebrity for his portraits of himself, family members and friends. Much of his later career was devoted to nude studies, which polarised critics and audiences, drawing praise for his masterful technique and psychological insight, and criticism for their emotional detachment and voyeurism. His best-known sitters included performance artist Leigh Bowery, artist’s model Henrietta Moraes, supermodel Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth II, and painted a series of self-portraits throughout his life. His 1995 painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, a nude portrait of the obese middle-aged civil servant Sue Tilley, again split public opinion, both praised for its focus on plus-sized bodies and condemned as voyeuristic “fat porn”. Freud’s arch-nemesis, the art critic Brian Sewell, criticised Freud’s “lust for ugliness”, describing his paintbrush as “crawl[ing] into a woman’s crotch with the insistence of a caterpillar into a cabbage heart”. He had the last laugh in 2008, when Benefits Supervisor Sleeping sold at auction for US$33.6 million, at the time the highest price ever for a work by a living artist. Feted by the art world and awarded the Order of Merit and the Companion of Honour, Freud continued painting until his death in 2011, aged 88. Married and divorced twice and with numerous partners, Freud had at least 14 acknowledged children, notably including the writer Esther Freud and fashion designer Bella Freud.