Realist painter Lucian Freud dies

London --Lucian Freud, a towering and uncompromising figure in the art world for more than 50 years, has died, his New York art dealer said Thursday. He was 88.

Spokeswoman Bettina Prentice said that Mr. Freud died after an illness at his London home late Wednesday

night, but didn't give any further details.

Mr. Freud was known for his intense realist portraits, particularly of nudes. In recent years his paintings commanded staggering prices at auction, including one of an overweight nude woman sleeping on a couch that sold in 2008 for $33.6 million.

He stubbornly refused to follow the trends of that world, insisting on using his realist approach even when it was out of favor with critics and collectors. He developed his own unique style, eventually winning recognition as one of the world's greatest painters.

"He certainly is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st centuries," said Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of the postwar art department at Christie's auction house in New York.

Queen Elizabeth II

Among his most famous subjects was Queen Elizabeth II, who posed for Mr. Freud fully clothed after extensive negotiations between the palace and the painter. The colorful portrait, which the artist donated to the queen's collection, remains one of the most unusual and controversial depictions of the British monarch.

"It makes her look like one of the royal corgis who has suffered a stroke," said Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal.

Other critics said more enthusiastically that the work had broken the staid mold of royal portraiture.

Mr. Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, a leading pioneer of modern psychoanalysis. He was born in Berlin in 1922 and moved to London with his parents Ernst and Lucie Freud in 1933 after Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany.

He was naturalized as a British subject six years later and spent almost his entire working life based in London, where he was often seen at fashionable restaurants, sometimes with beautiful younger women, including the fashion model Kate Moss, whom he painted nude, and other luminaries. Mr. Freud was at the height of his fame in the last decades of his life, when he still continued to paint for long hours at his studio in London's exclusive Holland Park. He was even named one of Britain's best dressed men by the fashion magazine GQ when he was well into his ninth decade.

Artworks in S.F.

His first solo exhibition was at the Lefevre Gallery in 1944 after a brief stint working on a merchant ship during World War II. After the war, Mr. Freud left London for several years to paint primarily in France and Greece. On his return in 1948, he started showing his work regularly at various exhibits and also taught art at several schools. His work can be found in major public collections around the world: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have three of his prints in their Achenbach Collection, and the Fisher Collection which will be part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's holdings has one etching.

Mr. Freud's marriage to Kathleen Garman lasted four years and was dissolved in 1952. His second marriage, to Caroline Blackwood in 1953, ended in 1957.

Seven Killed Over Weekend

Four people were shot and killed inside a Long Island pharmacy Sunday, capping a violent weekend in the New York region in which three more people were killed and nearly two dozen others were wounded by gunfire, authorities said. The murders on Long Island were believed to have been the result of a botched robbery shortly after the pharmacy, Haven Drugs in the Suffolk County town of Medford, opened for business, police there said. In Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, three men were

slain in separate shootings that also injured 23 people from early Saturday through Sunday, authorities said. In Medford, police were called to the pharmacy on Southhaven Avenue at about 10:20 a.m. by a person who was in the parking lot and reported hearing gunshots, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County police said. Police arrived and found four people fatally shot inside the store. An official with knowledge of the case said one of the dead was an 18-year-old clerk and another was a pharmacist whose age wasn't yet determined. The two other victims were customers, the official said. Their identities weren't released pending the notification of their families. Investigators believe the shooting occurred during a robbery and that a single gunman was responsible, the police spokeswoman said. There were no arrests and police didn't provide a description of the suspect. The police spokeswoman said it was unclear if anything was taken from inside the store. The clerk was identified by family members as Jennifer Mejia, a senior at Bellport High School in Brookhaven who was due to graduate Thursday and aspired to become a doctor. Her father, Rene Mejia, described her as a "wonderful daughter," who worked at the pharmacy for about two years. She wished him a happy Father's Day early Sunday as she left for work. The father, speaking outside their home, said she was looking forward to her prom on Wednesday. "Now I just see the dress inside," he said. "You have to remember all of the good things." In her yearbook, Ms. Mejia wrote that her nickname was "Little Bean" and penned a note telling her parents and siblings that she loved them. Kimberly Jimenez, 18, a friend and classmate, said Ms. Mejia's "ambition was to help people." "She was never a troubled person," she said. "For this to happen, it's so random. Crazy—crazy." Shaken residents converged on the crime scene and described the pharmacy as a mom-and-pop shop where employees knew patrons by name. "They know you, they know who you are," said Nicole Kaiser, 27. "This isn't that type of town. I can't believe it." Linda Pickford, 56, said the owner, who police said was not among the victims, would often ask her about her family members and was a known fixture. "It's just shocking – it's terrible," Ms. Pickford, a middle school principal, said of the carnage. In the five boroughs, New York Police Department officials said several raucous house and block parties were believed to have been the sites of separate shootings in which multiple people were killed or injured. Early Saturday, a party in East New York, Brooklyn, became the scene of a wild shooting when gunmen began spraying bullets at about 3:15 a.m. leaving one man dead and eight others injured, police said. According to police, Donzell Rogers, 20, died at an area hospital after he was shot at the party on Wyona Street. The eight others were taken to hospitals with injuries that weren't considered life threatening. Police said several people were being questioned and two guns had been recovered at the scene but no arrests had been made. At about 9:50 p.m. Saturday, a barbecue attended by more than 50 people in Brownsville, Brooklyn, was interrupted by gunfire, killing 45-year-old Jerry Armstrong, police said. No arrests were made. In Marine Park, Brooklyn, three teenagers were shot and wounded just after midnight Sunday, police said. Their injuries weren't considered life-threatening. About 15 minutes later in Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, four men and one woman were shot and injured during a fight at a barbecue. The victims were all listed listed in stable condition. At 4:40 a.m. Sunday, a Queens man visiting relatives in East New York, Brooklyn, was shot and killed in front a deli on Rockaway Avenue, police said. Anthony McRae, 22, was shot five times in the back and once in the leg and was declared dead at the scene by emergency medical technicians, police said. No arrests were made, police said. In Queens, two separate shootings left two men injured. In Manhattan, a Harlem man was shot and wounded. Two more shootings in Brooklyn wounded two men, police said. The details of those incidents weren't immediately available.