LONDON — Lucian Freud’s disputed 1939 painting *Man in a Black Scarf* will be shown publicly for the first time as part of the Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint exhibition at the Garden Museum in London from 2 June to 20 September 2026. The work was created when Freud was a student at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, Suffolk.

Lucian Freud repeatedly denied authorship of the painting before his death in 2011. In 1985, Christie’s initially identified the work as a Freud but reversed its decision after he stated he had not painted it. His denial appeared to stem from a personal feud with the painting’s original owners, Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard Chopping, fellow students at the East Anglian School.

Archival records from the Tate Britain show that students at the school noted what they were working on daily, and these indicate Freud was painting John Jameson—a friend and heir to the whiskey family—in 1939. Jameson is thought to be the sitter in *Man in a Black Scarf*.

The painting appeared on the BBC’s *Fake or Fortune?* in 2016, where art historian Philip Mould concluded it was very likely Freud’s. Two years later, new evidence further supported the attribution.

Wirth-Miller bequeathed the painting to Jon Lys Turner, a designer and author, with the instruction: “on the condition that he would authenticate and sell it ‘in order to infuriate Lucian.’” Turner spent 19 years attempting to secure authentication but faced resistance from experts unwilling to contradict Freud during his lifetime.

Turner said the exhibition will establish the overlooked connection between Freud and his teacher Cedric Morris, whose Suffolk farmhouse, Benton End, gave the show its name. He described *Man in a Black Scarf* as possessing “a confrontational gaze and these large eyes and the great thick paint sort of daubed and quite roughly handled. It’s an incredibly astute way of capturing that person.” He added, “He was picking this up from Morris,” noting stylistic parallels with Freud’s 1940 portrait of Morris, held in the National Museum of Wales.

Turner also referenced a list Wirth-Miller kept titled “13 Reasons to Hate Lucian,” saying, “He was the golden boy, he was a star even then and there was jealousy.”