Sue Tilley (born 1957), also known as Big Sue, is a British artist's model and writer. She modelled for painter Lucian Freud.
Born in south London,[1] Tilley worked for performance artist and club promoter Leigh Bowery as a cashier at his "Taboo" night club. Bowery introduced her to Lucian Freud in 1990 and she began posing for him the following year. During this time, she was also a full-time benefits supervisor at the Charing Cross jobcentre, a state-operated employment agency, and she eventually became manager there.[2]
Freud painted several large nude portraits of Tilley, the first being Evening in the Studio [de] (1993).[3]Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, painted in 1995, was sold at auction in 2008[4] for £17 million ($33.6 million US) in New York City.[5] In 2015, the 1994 painting Benefits Supervisor Resting[6] sold for £35 million ($56 million US).[7] A fourth painting Sleeping by the Lion Carpet was painted in 1996.[8] Freud also produced a number of etchings featuring Tilley, including Woman with an Arm Tattoo which Tilley sold in 2005.[9]
In 1997, she published Leigh Bowery: The life and times of an Icon, a biography.[10]
From September 2000 to March 2001, Chief Curator Rolf Lauter at Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt could realise the only overview exhibition of Freud's works in a German museum in close cooperation with the artist. Both the catalog and the invitation as well as the poster included Freud's painting Sleeping by the Lion Carpet[11] from 1995/96 with Sue Tilley.
In 2015, she had a solo show of paintings and drawings in a London gallery. She did a collaboration with Fendi to decorate luxury clothes and bags with her pictures of desk lamps, bottle openers, banana skins, cups of coffee.[12]
In September 2021 Tilley was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 show Saturday Live.[13]
