In memoriam

Lucian Freud

(8 December 1922 - 20 July 2011)

Reflection (self portrait), 1985
Oil on canvas, 56 x 51 cm,
private collection

  Being the grandson of Sigmund Freud, Lucian could have gone down in history just as that. But luckily, he wasn't overshadowed by it and his unfinchingly realistic paintings are instantly recognizable.

 

 Born in Berlin, he moved to London in 1933 and became a British citizen in 1939. Here he became part of a group of painters (later called "The School of London"), which included Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach.

 

 He was incredibly obsessed with human skin, its intimate folds, spots and imperfections. However, his earlier works - Girl with a kitten, 1947 - are cold, perhaps even weak, the surfaces looking crisp and clean. His style evolved gradually, becoming more expressionistic and lively, using thick impasto and warm, fleshy colurs. His models seem detached from the painter, as if the artist were examining them too closely, making them uncomfortable, distrustful.  The most famous of these is Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995), a remarkable study on human weakness and disease- which reached a record price in 2008. Other works include his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II from 2001 and of Kate Moss (2002), which show that also the rich and poweful are vulnerable to time. 

 

 A figure of penetrating analysis and disturbingly sincere art, Lucian Freud died at the age of 88, leaving the world without one of its closest inspectors, who described his work as such: "I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but what they happen to be."