A portrait that Lucian Freud spent years insisting was not his own work has been proven authentic and will go on public display for the first time. The painting, titled Man in a Black Scarf, was created in 1939 when Freud was a student in Suffolk, England. Experts have now confirmed what the artist long refused to admit: he painted it.
A student work denied by its master
Freud painted Man in a Black Scarf while studying at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, Suffolk. The subject is believed to be John Jameson, a friend of Freud’s and a descendant of the Jameson whiskey family. For years, Freud publicly rejected the work as his own, even as evidence mounted that it came from his brush. Only after a thorough investigation by art experts did the authentication become definitive.
Why the denial mattered locally
The painting’s journey from denial to acceptance has stirred interest in Suffolk, where Freud spent his formative years as an artist. The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, where the work was created, holds a significant place in British art history. For local residents and art historians, the confirmation of the portrait’s authenticity adds a new chapter to the story of Freud’s early development. The school’s legacy, tied to a young artist who would become one of Britain’s most celebrated painters, now includes a work he once tried to disown.
What happens next
Man in a Black Scarf is scheduled to be exhibited for the first time, giving the public a chance to see a piece of Freud’s early output that spent decades in dispute. The portrait offers a rare glimpse into his student years, a period that produced few surviving works. Its authentication closes a long running mystery about a painting the artist himself tried to erase from his catalog. The exhibition will allow viewers to judge for themselves the origins of a work that Freud could not, in the end, escape.
