Lucian Freud: 1996-2005

by Lucian Freud

At the time of the publication of Lucian Freud, the definitive monograph, by Jonathan Cape in 1996, Freud was already regarded as one of the great portrait painters of all time. His naked portraits had no parallel. His work exists outside the currents of contemporary art in a domain of his own. In the years since that publication his output has only increased. His worldwide reputation continues to be celebrated. In London he has been shown in a major retrospective at the Tate and more recently a number of his new paintings have been shown at the Wallace Collection.

This second volume contains the recent paintings, both large and small, together with a number of extraordinary new works on paper. His work shows no sign of diminishing energy. We are witnessing the work of one of the great artists of our time, now in his eighties, as he reaches still further with his scrutiny of human form and flesh.

Sebastian Smee, a young Australian writer, has been recognised as one of the most illuminating writers on art and has been close to Freud for several years. His introduction will provide a new analysis of Freud's work and a different voice among those who have made great claims for the significance of Freud's achievement.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published December 27, 2005

About the author

Lucian 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.

Reviews

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

My knowledge of the art of Freud who died a few years ago, was non-existent before reading and looking at this book. Of course now I'm an expert! Not really, obviously. But the more I looked at his paintings, which I would describe as "harsh" and read about him, the more interested I became. He had wise parents who read the handwriting on the wall and left Germany as Hitler was gaining power, and moved their family to Britain. He seemed to be very devoted to his art. He had a variety of relationships during his life and numerous children from those relationships. He painted some very captivating self-portraits and had some revealing things to say about the act of looking at yourself and accepting or not accepting what you see. One of his paintings of a very large nude woman, who frequently posed for him, sold recently for over 33 million, but it's my impression that the value of his art must be measured with a scale other then just the monetary one.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am grateful for the equal representation of male figures. Freud's weighty portraits remind me of the strangeness of the human body.

I love most the 'nudes' of his beloved dogs, and that they seem much more at home in their own bodies than we do.


Excellent image quality and large pages gave me a closer look at brush work. I always think of his brushwork as being smooth but there are lots of little globs in some of the close ups. I have never seen a Freud in person, so I am curious if this is the result of a change in style, or just an up close observation.

Well written text but very brief. I would have liked more information about the personal life of the artist - even if he wished to keep that separate from his work.

[Saulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, with most of the work of a contemporary genius of painting. He has an eye for the soul, for that intimate and rare moment of his subjects, when you can see through them.