Being naked in front of your father certainly went against the tide of opinion at the time. There was some hurt done, not intentionally, and it was nothing to do with sex-perhaps it was more an intrusion into innocence. It was somehow forbidden and experimental, but there was nothing sexual or inappropriate in what happened. But my dad felt it was all right and whatever he did at that time I felt was a hundred percent O.K. “I knew that some people felt what I did with my father was dangerous and inappropriate. Analysis of what had occurred seemed beyond a 14-year-old’s emotional grasp and understanding. He painted their faces, in family groups, lying in bed with friends, holding their own children, and, most controversially of all, in the case of six daughters and one son, naked.Īt the time, Annie could not articulate very clearly how she felt but later said that she could feel the collective prudish culture of Britain breathing down her neck, as well as being embarrassed since her boyfriend and her mother, both not unreasonably, felt that it was not right for her to pose naked.
With the exception of the four children by Katherine McAdam, he did, however, paint all his acknowledged children. He was the central focus of his family’s attention, deciding when he saw his children or not. He may have at times been buried by debt, but he was never tight. He had a playfulness alongside the steel core of ambition. His charm was magical, even hypnotic, and they all fell under his spell. Over the years there were splits and spats, tight alliances and silent stand-offs, shared intimacies and dramatic events. Some still do not know of at least one of their half-siblings.
Some were only vaguely aware of each other’s existence even after Lucian died.
His four children by Suzy Boyt, a student he met at the Slade in the 1950s, and two by the writer, bohemian traveler, and gardener Bernardine Coverley, were the main exception to this rule. His 14 offspring included a novelist, a Biro artist, a fashion designer, a journalist, a drugs adviser, a poet, and a sculptor. Journalists had a field day trying to explain the Freudian significance of children in their teens or early adulthood stripping bare for their father. The public was fascinated by Lucian’s portraits of his sons and daughters, some of which were naked portraits.
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