Lucian Freud and me: The real 'Donegal Man' on his encounters with the great artist

Irish Examiner

13-05-2025

Pat Doherty has the distinction of having sat for three portraits – two paintings and a copperplate etching – by the legendary British painter Lucian Freud.
Several copies of the etching feature in the exhibition, Lucian Freud's Etchings: A Creative Collaboration, which has just launched at Titanic Belfast in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Doherty became acquainted with Freud through a mutual friend, Andrew Parker Bowles, whom Doherty has known since the early 1970s, when he began doing building work for a development company that Parker Bowles ran with his brother-in-law, Nick Paravicini, and the architect Michael Heber-Percy.
'We did that for three years,' says Doherty, 'and then I went into partnership with them. They had the money, and I had the building experience. We were a good team.'
Doherty and Parker Bowles could hardly have come from more disparate backgrounds. Doherty is one of a family of ten. He left school at 14 and served his apprenticeship with an uncle in Donegal before emigrating to London, aged 19, in 1962.
'I started doing contract work a few years later,' he says. 'Brickwork and carpentry. I knew guys coming out who were good carpenters, good bricklayers. They'd all done apprenticeships, I knew they could do good work. We soon had 30 guys on the books, and we kept building up from there.'
Lucian Freud's painting of Andrew Parker Bowles, 'The Brigadier', at Christie's New York in 2015, where it sold for $34.89m. (Photo by)
Parker Bowles, by contrast, was born in Donnington Castle House in Berkshire. His godparents included the Queen Mother and his grandfather, the millionaire racehorse owner Sir Humphrey de Trafford. He attended Ampleforth College and Sandhurst Military Academy, rode in the Grand National and played on Prince Charles' polo team.
In 1973, Doherty attended Parker Bowles' wedding to Camilla Shand, who, after their divorce in 1995, went on to marry Prince Charles. She is now the Queen of the United Kingdom.
Parker Bowles agreed to sit for a portrait by Freud in the early 2000s. Parker Bowles was a career army officer as well as a developer, and Freud chose to paint him in his full regalia as The Brigadier. The portrait took months of sittings, and Doherty unwittingly became a witness to its execution.
'I could walk from my house to Lucian's studio in two and a half minutes, it was just around the corner,' he says. 'I'd go round to pick Andrew up after a sitting, and we'd go out to dinner. I did that three or four times before Andrew said, come on, I'll introduce you to Lucian. So we went in, had a glass of champagne and a chat. And then, every time I'd call to pick up Andrew, we'd chat with Lucian some more.
Pat Doherty, chairman of Titanic Belfast, features in several works by Freud. Picture courtesy of Titanic Belfast
'One evening Andrew said to me, 'Lucian said would you sit for him'. And my reply to that was, 'Fuck off, would you?' Sitting for an artist, I had no interest in that. But Andrew kept on about it.
"He said, look, it's such an honour to be asked by this man. You'll regret it, you know. And I said, Andrew, I certainly will not regret it. But he kept on, and I thought, Christ, okay.'
Doherty admits he did not quite realise what he was letting himself in for. 'In my head I thought it would just take two or three sittings,' he says. 'But the first time I sat for a portrait, it took 85 three-hour sittings, I think it was. And then he asked me to sit again, to do an etching, which took about 35 sittings. And then another painting, which took nearly 100 sittings. So I sat in front of him three times. He asked would I sit again, but I said no. I'd had enough of it.'
In all, Doherty spent at least 600 hours sitting for Freud. 'He was a very temperamental man, but very talented. You didn't get on the wrong side of him; you'd know when to chat and when not to. I remember when it started, at first, you know, everything he was doing, I was watching. He'd be walking around you, looking you over. I realised, he's trying to get into my head, and I'm trying to get into his. But that was never going to work, you know. That was just a daydream. So I let him get on with it.'
German-born British painter Lucian Freud. (Photo by)
Freud famously did not flatter his subjects, and he certainly did Doherty no favours; the paintings present him as ruddy-faced and jowly, and the etching is less forgiving again. Asked what he thought of them, Doherty chuckles: 'The first time I saw the etching, I said, Lucian, if someone paid you money and came in to collect that, I think they'd die.
'But we stayed friends, you know. For years afterwards, we'd go out once a week for dinner at the Wolesley.' There was no expectation that Doherty would buy any of the portraits, but, knowing how revered a figure Freud had become, he did eventually, paying £2.3 million for the two paintings and a copy of the etching. In 2023, he sold one of the paintings, Profile, Donegal Man, at auction for £15 million.
'That's a good return, I thought at the time. But in hindsight, I wish I hadn't sold it. The other one I kept, that's on loan now to the National Gallery in Dublin.'
Doherty was at Freud's house, along with Parker Bowles and the artist's studio assistant David Dawson, on the night of his passing in 2011. 'Lucian was unconscious,' he says. 'Andrew, David and I went out for dinner at Sally Clarke's, the restaurant next door. And then one of the girls came in and said he'd gone.
'Lucian was complicated, a complicated man, but I'd glad to have known him all the same.'
Doherty has business interests all over the world, and is invariably cited as one of Ireland's most successful property developers. Asked what his greatest achievement has been, he says with a twinkle, 'surviving".
He still lives in London, and is grateful for the opportunities the city has given him. 'I love Donegal,' he says. 'I'm from Donegal. I've got a house there, and I visit regularly. But I grew up in London. When people ask if I'll retire to Donegal, I say no, I don't see that.'
He laughs suddenly. 'But I'll be buried there,' he says.
Lucian Freud's Etchings: A Creative Collaboration runs at Titanic Belfast until September 30. Further information: titanicbelfast.com
David Dawson
David Dawson still describes himself as a "farmboy', despite having worked as Freud's studio assistant in London for the last 20 years of his life.
Dawson grew up in rural Welshpool, in Wales. He studied painting at the Royal College of Art in London, and had just graduated when he was introduced to Freud's art dealer, James Kirkman. Kirkman in turn introduced him to Freud, who was increasingly busy in his career and needed help in his studio.
'I was a sort of run-around boy, really,' says Dawson. 'I'd buy the paint and prime the canvases, that kind of thing. Lucian and myself got on immediately. I happened to live in Notting Hill, close to his home, so he just phoned me every day from then on. He'd say, can you do this, can you do that? And it just developed from there.' At that stage, Freud was 69. He was well-established as a figurative painter, and had settled into a routine of painting portraits in the two-roomed studio upstairs in his home at 138 Kensington Church Street.
David Dawson with Lucian Freud's painting of Pat Doherty at the recreation of the painter's studio at Titanic Belfast.
A degenerate gambler in his day, reputed to have lost millions betting on the horses, Freud had more or less quit by then. Dawson insists he drank in moderation, and only smoked the odd cigar. Freud was a notorious womaniser - he acknowledged 14 children, and may have fathered as many as 40 – but Dawson is discreet about his relationships. 'Lucian had many close friends,' he says. 'They all meant something to him. He chose who he wanted to get really close to, and others he kept out.' Freud was also notorious for the commitment he required of his models, who could expect to spend hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of hours sitting for his portraits. It suited some better than others. Among those he painted often were the benefits supervisor 'Big Sue' Tilley and the performance artist Leigh Bowery.
'The first painting I saw when I visited his studio was a big portrait he did of Leigh,' says Dawson. 'That was halfway done. It was a really important moment in my life, a pivotal moment, to see that being made. At that stage, Lucian was just beginning to really stretch into what people now call his mature phase. He really went for it in the last 20 years of his life.
'He always worked very hard. The sitter would arrive at eight in the morning. I'd be there before them. I'd have set up the studio, with the right canvas, the right placing of the bed or whatever. Lucian would work on that painting till lunchtime, then he'd rest for the afternoon, and go back painting in the evening. He'd do that every day, seven days a week.'
Over the course of his twenty years with Freud, Dawson produced a series of photographs of the artist and his subjects at work. It began when Freud was painting his fellow artist, David Hockney.
'Lucian had just finished the portrait, and he'd gone out to take a phone call. I wanted to take a little photo of David with the portrait, but as I pressed the button on my camera, Lucian walked back in through the door. And because it was film, I didn't know what I'd got until I had it developed. But I showed it to Lucian and he thought it was fantastic. So after that, I would have my little point-and-shoot camera, and I'd take photos when I could.'
Over several months in 2000/1, Freud painted Queen Elizabeth II. It was intended that she would sit for the portrait in his studio, but when the press got wind of the arrangement, they had to meet instead at St James's Palace.
Dawson was present for the sessions, and took several photographs. 'I did ask Her Majesty,' he says. 'And she said, 'yes, I think it's quite a historic moment.' So I took four photographs. The first one's blurred because I was so nervous, but then there are two good ones of the Queen, and the last is after she's gone; there's just the painting and the empty chair.'
Titanic Belfast's CEO Judith Owens and conservator Sean Madden unbox 'Donegal Man', an etching by Lucian Freud of Titanic Belfast's chairman Pat Doherty. Picture by Jonathan Porter
Freud's portrait of the queen was arguably the most controversial of his career. Robin Simon, the editor of the British Art Journal, said 'it makes her look like one of her corgis who has suffered a stroke.' The Sun thought Freud should be locked up in the Tower for his impertinence.
What did Dawson make of it? 'I like it because it's so small,' he says. 'It's one of the great things that Lucian could do, is make a very small painting very powerful. Not many artists can do that. And I think it's a true portrait of a woman in a unique position of being a monarch, a head of state.'
Did Her Majesty express an opinion of the painting? 'Absolutely not!'
Freud also painted the supermodel Kate Moss, and Dawson photographed the two in bed towards the end of the artist's life. 'That was a lovely moment,' he says.
'Lucian wasn't feeling too good, so Kate just jumped in for a hug. It was very sweet. And I said, oh, can I take a photo?' Apart from painting, the only medium Freud liked to work in was etching. The master printer Mark Balakjian, with whom he collaborated, would prepare copper plates with a wax ground, which Freud would sketch into with an etching needle.
'Again, it was all from life,' says Dawson. 'And the etchings were always done after the oil painting. It could take months, but not quite as long as a painting. He knew the face of the person well by then, and the line would come more fluently.'
On his death, aged 88, in 2011, Freud left Dawson his home. 'He had mentioned that he'd do so. There was a plan, but I never listened to it too strongly. It's a lovely house. Early Georgian. I did a total refurb. I put it back to how it looked before. I've kept Lucian's studio. It's still alive. And I have my own studio, separate.'
Dawson also has charge of Freud's archives. 'Which means I've got control of the copyright,' he says. 'It's just me and the lawyer, so we can make decisions quickly and clearly. Bridgeman Art Library manage the archives, and I just say yes or no to requests. I know what feels right and what doesn't.' Freud sometimes fretted that his schedule left Dawson too little time to devote to his own painting. But Dawson has no regrets. 'I put Lucian's work first,' he says. 'I felt that what he was making was so extraordinary, I wanted to be around to see it made. I thought it was worth it. And I still hold to that.'
Titanic Belfast
Titanic Belfast opened in 2012, on the 100th anniversary of the launch of the RMS Titanic
Titanic Belfast is the brainchild of Pat Doherty, from Buncrana, Co Donegal, who made his fortune as a property developer in London. The centre commemorates the history of the ill-fated liner, along with the maritime heritage of Belfast, and is the jewel in the crown of a 200-acre development on the site of the old Harland & Wolff shipyard, which Doherty bought with another Irish businessman, Dermot Desmond, in 2003.
A general view of the Titanic Museum on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
'Pat is one of the great visionaries when it comes to regeneration and bringing heritage to life,' says Judith Owens, who has served as Chief Executive of Titanic Belfast since 2017, having previously been Director of Operations and Deputy CEO.
Owens' family was involved with Harland & Wolff for generations. 'My grandfather worked in the shipyard, and my dad was general manager of the electrical division,' she says. 'So I grew up in the area, and many years ago, I actually owned one of the shipyard officer's houses. Most people around here have a connection to the shipyard, it was such a big part of industrial Belfast.'
When Owens first got involved with the Titanic Belfast project, 'there were just four of us on staff,' she says. 'We now employ over 300. We'll have about 500,000 people coming through the doors between now and September, and we're averaging about 850,000 a year.
"Obviously, we have the Titanic exhibition, but we have an art gallery and high-end conference and banqueting facilities as well.
'The whole idea with Titanic Belfast was that we were to be a catalyst to kick-start tourism, and particularly international tourism, after the Good Friday Agreement. We've certainly succeeded in that.'