He was often virtually penniless in his early days, spending almost all his money on paint. ‘Until I was fifty I never had a bank account, always lived from hand to mouth. I used to lie awake at night wondering if I’d be able to go on with my paintings or whether the paint would run out.

The end of Lucian’s gambling days coincided with gaining a new dealer. William Acquavella was ambitious, and transformed Lucian’s reputation and prices. His New York gallery was the ultimate blue-chip modern art dealership, presenting exhibitions by Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Picasso and Léger.

When Acquavella took him on, he said bluntly: ‘Lucian look. I’m an art dealer. I’m not an accountant. I’m not a nursemaid and if you need any of those things you’ve got the wrong guy. But you paint them and I’ll sell them.

The collectors of his work were mainly English aristocrats like the Devonshires or Colin Tennant, who were willing to pay between £5,000 and £25,000 per painting. ‘It doesn’t seem a great deal now but it was then,’ said d’Offay. There were one or two early purchases by the Tate and other public collections in the 1950s, but that petered out. Certainly compared to Bacon he seemed an artist in the second division. On top of that, dealers considered Lucian difficult as he would sell works on the side, or slip them off quietly to bookmakers to settle a debt.

Kirkman appealed to Lord Goodman to arbitrate to prevent the split and saw him twice, but even England’s greatest fixer could not mend the relationship. Victor Chandler also tried to broker a peace deal, but to no avail. Kirkman said, ‘I didn’t want to go on. I had another life and other artists. Lucian was very demanding. I never went away for more than ten days and he would phone within five minutes of my coming back home. Even on Christmas Eve he would call and ask for some photographs of a work to be sent to someone. It never occurred to Lucian that he could be wrong, however monstrously he behaved to his children, wives or even his dealers.