Lucian Freud expressed himself artistically through his realistic brushstrokes

Abhishek Kumar

DECEMBER 08, ON THIS DAY

A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then the painter realizes that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope the picture might spring to life.

Lucian Freud

Self-Portrait (Reflection)

Lucian Freud was a renowned artist who produced numerous masterpieces over the course of a six-decade career. He was known for his quirky personality and realistic impasto paintings. He is regarded as a forefather of figurative portraiture in the twentieth century. During a period when abstract painting was dominant, Lucian chose the conventional path. He was notorious for subjecting 168 of his friends and family members to exhaustingly long sittings for his paintings. Only a few of his models can match the level of concentration he displays in his paintings. Lucian’s subjects included Queen Elizabeth II, Martin Grayford, Kate Moss, and David Hockney amongst others. His private life, which was filled with extramarital affairs and gambling addiction, lent an aura of realism to his work.

Annabel And Rattler

Lucian Michael Freud was born on December 8, 1922, to Ernst Freud and Lucie Brasch. Lucian Freud had to switch schools frequently due to his disruptive behaviour. He attended the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham, the Central School of Art in London, the Bryanston School in Dorset, and Dartington Hall in Devon. After serving as a seaman in 1941, he also attended London University\’s Goldsmiths College from 1942 to 1943. In 1944, he held his first solo show at London\’s Lefevre Gallery, where he displayed works like The Painter\’s Room.

Girl With A White Dog

Although his technique changed with time, his early work still exhibited a sense of maturity and reality that gave it a tremendous amount of depth. He never combined artificial and natural lighting in his portraits since he had a keen eye for it. He clearly distinguishes between day and night paintings in his works. Sinew, muscle, and wrinkly skin are all present in Freud\’s portraits. He made his subjects endure torturous, protracted positions, followed by intensely probing questions and angry outbursts. The majority of them cooperated with his request that they sit before him in their naked state. He frequently painted naked, and his naked self-portraits are gutsy and daring.

Girl with a Kitten

Freud found that portraiture was the most practical way for him to express himself artistically, putting his sitters through hardships because posing often took months or multiple hours in front of his easel. Everything took place in complete secrecy behind closed doors, and the tight bond that they formed was crucial for the artist. He rarely worked on commission, preferring to portray only his friends, loves, relatives, and children. A few of his popular paintings are Cedric Morris (1940), Girl with a Kitten (1947), Portrait of Kitty (1949), Girl with a White Dog (1952), Hotel Bedroom (1954), Naked Man with Rat (1978), Reflection (1985), Annabel Sleeping (1988), Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995), Sleeping by the Lion Carpet (1996), After Cézanne (2000), Queen Elizabeth II (2001), and The Brigadier (2004).

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II

Although he has occasionally been referred to as a realist painter because of the careful detail in his early works, his subjectivity and intensity have always set him apart from the sombre aesthetic of British figurative post-war painting. His later works, which date from the late 1950s on, have even larger and more expressive brushstrokes and include a series of portraits of Freud\’s family and close friends that show the depth of his bonds. At the age of 88, Freud passed away in London on July 20, 2011. The walls of the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, to name a few, are covered with his self-portraits and nudes painted with thickly loaded brush and splashed with browns and beige colours.

Naked man with his friend Large Interior by Lucian Freud A painting by Lucian Freud

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Freud
2. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/freud-lucian/
3. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/04/the-lives-of-lucian-freud-by-william-feaver-review-fame-1968-2011