One afternoon, during a break sitting for his portrait at Lucian Freud’s Kensington studio, Andrew Parker Bowles and the artist went to dinner at the Wolseley, where Freud always had a table.
They made an unlikely pair: the roguish painter in his eighties, who famously enjoyed a flutter and a fight, and the highly decorated soldier with impeccable royal connections.
‘At one stage a group of Americans were taking flash photos, which Lucian hated, so he threw a bread roll at one of them. The man complained,’ recalls Parker Bowles. And how did you react? ‘Well,’ he pauses. ‘I was just a tiny bit embarrassed.’ Luckily, the proprietor was on hand to mediate. ‘He came over and said to the American, “I’m terribly sorry but Mr Freud is allowed to do that.” That was it.’ He laughs, heartily.
Andrew Parker Bowles (‘APB’) is at home – a residence in the Cotswolds surrounded by lush green gardens. Here, there are rows and rows of vegetables and corners sprung with pretty flowers, among them a Duchess of Cornwall hybrid rose, given as a fragrant joke by his former wife, Camilla. Inside, a riot of treasures clamour for attention. The last British Union flag that flew in Rhodesia, where he served, is resting on a radiator. Nestled on a shelf amidst medals and trophies is a small bottle of stitches preserved in brine – wrenched from Parker Bowles’ back after he broke it during the hurdle race at Ascot. In another is a lump of cartilage extracted from his knee and pickled for posterity (the culmination of rugby knocks and jumping out of a plane). All, in their own way, are emblems of the rugged masculinity and swashbuckling adventure he exudes even now, aged 79. You can see why Freud liked him.
In the corner of the room are photographs of his old friend. They hang next to a bronze bust of Freud’s head and a framed letter: ‘My dear Andrew, since even your more foolish actions have their reasons – why is it that I haven’t seen you for so long? Can we have a ride, a drink, a jaunt or a fight? Please write. Lucian.’
The pair first met in 1983, when Parker Bowles, then Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, received a request from Lucian Freud, who wanted to paint a horse. Parker Bowles chose the horse he thought was best at staying still and Lucian painted away. ‘When he finished, he gave the trooper holding the horse a sketch and said, “Don’t just throw it away, if you want to sell it, go to my agent and he’ll buy it off you.”’ With the money, the trooper bought a house. ‘A rather nice start. I got nothing as a result,’ says Parker Bowles in mock dismay. ‘Except I got to know him.’
Before long, a friendship blossomed. Together, they’d go riding, galloping around Hyde Park, Freud’s scruffy suit covered in paint, his white silk scarf billowing in the wind. ‘[Freud] wouldn’t wear a hard hat. So it would be me chasing after him, trying to slow him down. Him going flat out.’
Over the years, they’d visit the National Portrait Gallery at night, which would be opened especially for Freud. They went to Paris for an exhibition and to Ireland to see Freud’s bookmaker, who had accrued more than 20 pictures in lieu of gambling debts. They watched the Ascot races, and ‘as I recall, he lost a million pounds betting.’ (Eventually Freud stopped gambling. ‘When I asked why, he said, “Well, now I have enough money.” The joy and fun was being short of money and losing it and having people hammering on his door.’ Those debtors, it was said, included the Krays.)
And yet, amongst all the liveliness, Freud also found the time to work prolifically. He painted well into his eighties, burning through sittings – a nude mother one morning, her nude daughter in the afternoon. Perhaps it was only inevitable that one day the bell would toll for APB.
It was 2003. ‘At first I said no. I said, “Look, I have things to do.”’ He had recently left the army and was putting together a few business prospects. No matter, said Freud: “It will only take a few months. It’s a head and shoulders.”’
They’d talked about James Jacques Tissot’s glamorous portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of Colonel Fred Burnaby, a moustachioed war hero who served in the same regiment as Parker Bowles. It would be the inspiration. So APB went back to the Knightsbridge Barracks and borrowed his old uniform. To his surprise, he discovered that it no longer fitted as comfortably. ‘I’d put on a bit of weight, or otherwise it’d shrunk,’ he laughs. ‘The first morning it was so hot, and the uniform was so tight, I undid it. That’s when Freud said, “That’s it, hold it, that’s what we want.”’
The three-month mark came and went, and the picture continued to grow in size. ‘He kept on adding canvas. My heart sunk. Soon it was seven feet high.’
By his own admission he was a fidgety sitter and Freud was ‘incredibly slow.’ Parker Bowles got by with plenty of Diet Coke and regular breaks. ‘As you can see from the picture I had rather an inane look on my face. You can’t have someone smiling because you can’t hold a smile for 18 months.’
Freud liked to work in silence. ‘Every so often he would come quite close to you.’ He gestures his hand to his nose. ‘Look at you, and go back.’
When Freud wanted to rest, he’d stop and talk. ‘But then he wouldn’t paint. One was torn between wanting him to get on with it and listening to what he had to say about things.’
At one stage Parker Bowles caught a glimpse of the portrait (‘He didn’t like me seeing what he’d done, but it was such a big picture, one couldn’t help but look at it’), and complained that his friend had been unkind in the likeness of his size. Freud gleefully painted an extra inch of fat on to Parker Bowles’ middle. ‘He did it to shut me up.’
Freud’s tempers were infamous, yet he and Andrew never argued. ‘Discussions yes, arguments no. In his relationships, the minute something went wrong, he’d cut you off and wouldn’t ever speak to you again. Luckily, he didn’t do it to me. But he did with some of the girls he painted.’
Instead, Freud was ‘great company’ and a routine emerged. ‘It would be breakfast at Clarke’s, then we’d go back and I’d climb into my uniform. Even if he was just painting my face, he still wanted me to wear the whole uniform.’ Lunch might be at Clarke’s again and then back to the studio. If it sounds intense, it wasn’t constant: twice weekly for the sittings. ‘Then he’d wheel in the next victim.’
The starriest of these included Jerry Hall and Kate Moss, though perhaps one of Freud’s most talked-about paintings, unveiled in 2001, was of the Queen. Many were critical of the royal portrait, which was, even by the most anodyne description, unforgiving. One newspaper called it a ‘travesty’. ‘You have to say it’s accurate. I once asked Her Majesty, the Queen what she thought about Mr Freud’s picture and she replied, “Very interesting.” Which is a very clever answer, really.’
And what of his own portrait? Did it require diplomacy? After 18 long months the oil painting was finished and titled The Brigadier. ‘A most insolent, scathing, and melancholy study of the self,’ remarked a critic. Flattering? Admittedly perhaps not, but a masterpiece, said many. Parker Bowles might have bought it. Instead, it was installed in someone else’s house and eventually sold by Christie’s in 2015 for $35m – a record figure.
‘This house is full of pictures, and secondly a seven-foot picture of myself looking rather red-faced and fat wasn’t my idea of fun. I suppose if I’d have been clever enough, I could have bought it for three or four million and later sold it. But I didn’t have three or four million to spare at all, actually.’
So there’s no Brigadier hanging in the Cotswolds, but a picture of a friendship emerges and endures. Freud lived to be 88. Parker Bowles went to see his friend as he lay dying in the summer of 2011. ‘Three of his daughters were there. [Freud had 14 acknowledged children.] I went in. He was unconscious and I held his hand. We went next door with [Freud’s assistant] David Dawson and my Irish friend Pat Doherty, who he painted too, and we had dinner and he died that night.’
Parker Bowles smiles. ‘He was a fascinating man. I wouldn’t say he was a particularly kind man, he was often quite cruel. But his whole life was painting, really, right to the end.’
Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits is at the Royal Academy from 27 October 2019 until 26 January and The Lives of Lucian Freud by William Feaver (Bloomsbury, £29.40) is available to buy now.
This article is from the November issue of Tatler, at newsstands now.
