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Lucian Freud
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Oct. 31, 1992-Jan. 10, 1993 and at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Feb. 1-Mar. 14, 1993.
Lucian Freud has always stirred controversy with his radical reinvention of artistic conventions. In particular his graphic male nudes, both portraits of himself and of others, have embodied a rejection of youth's sleek smooth lines in favor of age's unglamorous and unvarnished naturalism. His recent studies of obese male and female models have renewed his reputation as controversialist. This book reminds us that some of his work over the years has been at times more accepted. His portrait of artist Francis Bacon set new standards for truth in portraiture. He painted his mother with huge affection. His landscapes of London have been taken as social commentary, reflections of the metaphorical and literal decay he sees around him. This book records the artist's career after 50 years as a painter.
Lucian Freud has always stirred controversy with his radical reinvention of artistic conventions. In particular his graphic male nudes, both portraits of himself and of others, have embodied a rejection of youth's sleek smooth lines in favor of age's unglamorous and unvarnished naturalism. His recent studies of obese male and female models have renewed his reputation as controversialist. This book reminds us that some of his work over the years has been at times more accepted. His portrait of artist Francis Bacon set new standards for truth in portraiture. He painted his mother with huge affection. His landscapes of London have been taken as social commentary, reflections of the metaphorical and literal decay he sees around him. This book records the artist's career after 50 years as a painter.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Lucian Freud
58 books8 followersLucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.
His early career as a painter was influenced by surrealism, but by the early 1950s his often stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism. Freud was an intensely private and guarded man, and his paintings, completed over a 60-year career, are mostly of friends and family. They are generally sombre and thickly impastoed, often set in unsettling interiors and urban landscapes. The works are noted for their psychological penetration and often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model. Freud worked from life studies, and was known for asking for extended and punishing sittings from his models.
His early career as a painter was influenced by surrealism, but by the early 1950s his often stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism. Freud was an intensely private and guarded man, and his paintings, completed over a 60-year career, are mostly of friends and family. They are generally sombre and thickly impastoed, often set in unsettling interiors and urban landscapes. The works are noted for their psychological penetration and often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model. Freud worked from life studies, and was known for asking for extended and punishing sittings from his models.
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