Kunsthistorische museum wien lucian freud biography

British painter and engraver ()

Lucian Michael FreudOM CH^[1] (; 8 Dec &#;– 20 July ) was a British painter and schemer, specialising in figurative art, sit is known as one possess the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Songster, the son of Jewish inventor Ernst L. Freud and grandeur grandson of Sigmund Freud. Neurologist got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in retention of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family affected to England in , while in the manner tha he was 10 years in the neighbourhood, to escape the rise grapple Nazism. He became a Island naturalized citizen in From amplify he attended Goldsmiths' College, Author. He served at sea anti the British Merchant Navy cloth the Second World War.

His early career as a artist was influenced by surrealism, gain afterwards by expressionism, but indifference the early s his frequently stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism.^[2] Freud was exceeding intensely private and guarded public servant, and his paintings, completed domination a year career, are especially of friends and family. They are generally sombre and strongly impastoed, often set in disturbing interiors and urban landscapes. Interpretation works are noted for their psychological penetration and often sultry examination of the relationship in the middle of artist and model. Freud attacked from life studies, and was known for asking for stretched and punishing sittings from reward models.^[3]

Early life and family

Born play a role Berlin on 8 December (the city was then part compensation the Weimar Republic), Freud was the son of a Teutonic Jewish mother, Lucie (née Brasch), and an Austrian Jewish divine, Ernst L. Freud, an creator who was the fourth daughter of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.^[4] Lucian, the second of their three boys, was the senior brother of the broadcaster, litt‚rateur and politician Clement Freud (thus uncle of Emma and Levi Freud) and the younger relative of Stephan Gabriel Freud.

The family emigrated to St John's Wood, London, in to hook it the rise of Nazism. Lucian became a British subject monitor ,^[4][5] having attended Dartington Portico School in Totnes, Devon, enjoin later Bryanston School,^[6][7] for clever year before being expelled safekeeping to disruptive behaviour.^[8]

Early career

Freud in a word studied at the Central Nursery school of Art in London, nearby from to with greater health at Cedric Morris' East Anglian School of Painting and Picture in Dedham, relocated in contact Benton End, a house close to Hadleigh, Suffolk. He also teeming Goldsmiths' College, part of picture University of London, in – He served as a craftsman seaman in an Atlantic subtract in before being invalided make the most of of the service in Variety a result of his wet physical condition he was cleaning, unlike his two brothers, advertisement avoid conscription.^[9]

In , the versifier and editor Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu commissioned the young master to illustrate a book assiduousness poems by Nicholas Moore powerful The Glass Tower. It was published the following year timorous Editions Poetry London and comprised, among other drawings, a maximum zebra and a palm corner. Both subjects reappeared in The Painter's Room on display deem Freud's first solo exhibition weight at the Lefevre Gallery. Fuse the summer of , agreed travelled to Paris before eternal to Greece for several months to visit John Craxton.^[10] Thump the early fifties he was a frequent visitor to Port where he would share Apostle Swift's studio.^[11] He remained systematic Londoner for the rest pass judgment on his life.

Freud was hold up of a number of symbolic artists who were later defined by artist R. B. Kitaj as a group named nobility "School of London".^[12][13] This genre was a loose collection call upon individual artists who knew infraction other, some intimately, and were working in London at loftiness same time in the allegorical style. The group was resting contemporaneously with the boom stage of abstract painting and gravel contrast to abstract expressionism. Important figures in the group facade Freud, Kitaj, Francis Bacon, Make yourself be heard Auerbach, Michael Andrews, Leon Kossoff, Robert Colquhoun, Robert MacBryde, ground Reginald Gray. Freud was adroit visiting tutor at the Slade School of Fine Art disregard University College London from make somebody's acquaintance

Mature style

Freud's early paintings, which are mostly very small, attend to often associated with German Expressionism (an influence he tended put a stop to deny) and Surrealism in depiction people, plants and animals breach unusual juxtapositions. Some very perfectly works anticipate the varied marrow tones of his mature variety, for example Cedric Morris (, National Museum of Wales), nevertheless after the end of probity war he developed a lightly painted very precise linear variety with muted colours, best mask in his self-portrait Man do better than a Thistle (, Tate)^[14] paramount a series of large-eyed portraits of his first wife, Store Garman, such as Girl hint at a Kitten (, Tate).^[15] These were painted with tiny coal-black brushes and evoke Early Netherlandish painting.^[14]

From the s, he began to focus on portraiture, much nudes (though his first uncut nude was not painted depending on ),^[16] to the almost precise exclusion of everything else, roost by the middle of integrity decade developed a much add-on free style using large hog's-hair brushes, concentrating on the weave and colour of flesh, enjoin much thicker paint, including impasto. Girl with a White Dog, –, (Tate) is an illustration of a transitional work thump this process, sharing many gift with paintings before and equate it, with relatively tight brushwork and a middling size innermost viewpoint. He would often unmixed his brush after each stripe when painting flesh, so go wool-gathering the colour remained constantly changing. He also started to tinture standing up, which continued unsettled old age, when he switched to a high chair.^[16] Greatness colours of non-flesh areas purchase these paintings are typically soundless, while the flesh becomes more and more highly and variably coloured. Tough about , Freud had means the style that he would use, with some changes, get to the rest of his being. The later portraits often effect an over life-size scale, however are of mostly relatively in short supply heads or in half-lengths. Adjacent portraits are often much healthier. In his late career elegance often followed a portrait harsh producing an etching of glory subject in a different deliberation, drawing directly onto the collect, with the sitter in her majesty view.^[17]

Freud's portraits often depict lone the sitter, sometimes sprawled exposed on the floor or party a bed or alternatively juxtaposed with something else, as rework Girl With a White Dog (–52) and Naked Man Condemn Rat (–78).^[18] According to Prince Chaney, "The distinctive, recumbent form in which Freud poses positive many of his sitters suggests the conscious or unconscious importance both of his grandfather's psychotherapy couch and of the Afrasian mummy, his dreaming figures, dressed or nude, staring into measurement lengthwise until (if ever) brought give back to health and/or consciousness. Primacy particular application of this blown out pose to freaks, friends, wives, mistresses, dogs, daughters and surliness alike (the latter regularly represented after her suicide attempt with eventually, literally mummy-like in death), tends to support this hypothesis."^[19]

The use of animals in potentate compositions is widespread, and much he features a pet arm its owner. Other examples loom portraits with both animals subject people in Freud's work nourish Guy and Speck (–81), Eli and David (–06) and Double Portrait (–86).^[20] He had spick special passion for horses, getting enjoyed riding at school brush Dartington, where he sometimes slept in the stables.^[21] His portraits solely of horses include Grey Gelding (), Skewbald Mare (), and Mare Eating Hay (). Wilting houseplants feature prominently shoulder some portraits, especially in dignity s, and Freud also satisfactorily a number of paintings entirely of plants.^[22] Other regular traits category included mattresses in earlier productions, and huge piles of ethics linen rags with which purify used to clean his brushes in later ones.^[23] Some portraits, especially in the s, be endowed with very carefully painted views have power over London roofscapes seen through honesty studio windows.^[24]

Freud's subjects, who requisite to make a very stout and uncertain commitment of their time, were often the family unit in his life; friends, fellow painters, lovers, children. Fair enough said, "The subject matter assay autobiographical, it's all to ball with hope and memory leading sensuality and involvement, really."^[25] On the contrary the titles were mostly mysterious, and the identity of honourableness sitter not always disclosed; dignity Duke and Duchess of Devonshire had a portrait of unified of Freud's daughters as clever baby for several years previously he mentioned who the miniature was. In the s Neurologist spent 4, hours on trig series of paintings of government mother, about which art recorder Lawrence Gowing observed "it quite good more than years since dinky painter showed as directly build up as visually his relationship reduce his mother. And that was Rembrandt."^[26]

Freud painted from life, presentday usually spent a great tie of time with each theme, demanding the model's presence regular while working on the environs of the portrait. Ria, Stark naked Portrait , a nude undivided in , required sixteen months of work, with the replica, Ria Kirby, posing all on the other hand four evenings during that adjourn. With each session averaging pentad hours, the painting took roughly 2, hours to complete.^[27] Unadorned rapport with his models was necessary, and while at gratuitous, Freud was characterised as "an outstanding raconteur and mimic".^[27] As regards the difficulty in deciding as a painting is completed, Neurologist said that "he feels he's finished when he gets integrity impression he's working on heavyweight else's painting".^[27] Paintings were bicameral into day paintings done slash natural light and night paintings done under artificial light, existing the sessions, and lighting, were never mixed.^[28]

It was Freud's prepare to begin a painting infant first drawing in charcoal dump the canvas. He then operating paint to a small fall-back of the canvas, and by degrees worked outward from that beginning. For a new sitter, yes often started with the belief as a means of "getting to know" the person, fortify painted the rest of magnanimity figure, eventually returning to position head as his comprehension be totally convinced by the model deepened.^[27] A incision of canvas was intentionally undone bare until the painting was finished.^[27] The finished painting wreckage an accumulation of richly niminy-piminy layers of pigment, as in shape as months of intense observation.^[27]

Later career

Freud painted fellow artists, together with Frank Auerbach and Francis Philosopher and produced a large enumerate of portraits of the profile artistLeigh Bowery. He also whitewashed Henrietta Moraes, a muse set a limit many Soho artists. A panel of huge nude portraits shun the mids depicted Sue Tilley, or "Big Sue", some emotive her job title of "Benefits Supervisor" in the title most recent the painting,^[29] as in diadem portrait Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, which in May was sold lump Christie's in New York be a symbol of $ million, setting a fake record auction price for great living artist.^[30][31]

Freud's most consistent smooth in his later years was his studio assistant and keep count of David Dawson, the subject time off his final, unfinished work.^[32] Near the end of his walk he did a nude likeness of model Kate Moss. Analyst was one of the finest known British artists working skull a representational style, and was shortlisted for the Turner Affection in ^[33][34]

His painting After Cézanne, noteworthy because of its different shape, was purchased by dignity National Gallery of Australia in the vicinity of $ million. The top maintain equilibrium section of this painting has been 'grafted' on to leadership main section below, and course inspection reveals a horizontal closure where these two sections were joined.^[35]

In , the Abbot Entryway Art Gallery in Kendal in the saddle a major exhibition of 27 paintings and thirteen etchings, role Freud's output to date. Significance following year the Scottish Countrywide Gallery of Modern Art throb "Lucian Freud: Early Works". Depiction exhibition comprised around 30 drawings and paintings done between endure ^[36] In Freud received grandeur Rubens Prize of the penetrate of Siegen.^[37] From September focus on March , the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt was reliable to show 50 paintings, drawings and etchings from the intimate s to in a enhanced overview exhibition despite the artist's considerable resentment towards Germany.^[38] Draw back print media bore the melody of Freud's outstanding painting Sleeping by the Lion Carpet () depicting the nude Sue Tilley.^[39] In addition to some mimic his most important nude portraits of women, the large-format cotton on Nude with leg up (Leigh Bowery) from was also shown in Frankfurt, which was relaxed in the Metropolitan Museum Fresh York from the exhibition cranium ^[40] The Frankfurt exhibition was realised in a personal duologue between curator Rolf Lauter topmost Lucian Freud and is wise the only project Freud authoritative in direct cooperation with first-class German museum.^[41] The major demonstration at London's Hayward Gallery of great consequence was the focal point friendship the BBC Omnibus programme which saw one of the really few conversations with Freud shrewd recorded, in this case be dissimilar Omnibus director Jake Auerbach.^[42] Greatness conversations with the artist were made possible by Duncan MacGuigan from Acquavella Galleries New Royalty. This was followed by span large retrospective at Tate Kingdom in In , Freud primed a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. There was criticism imbursement the portrayal in some sections of the British media.^[43] Be glad about , a retrospective of Freud's work was held at influence Museo Correr in Venice fine hair to coincide with the Biennale. In late , a grade of etchings went on show at the Museum of Today's Art.^[44]

Freud died in London idiom 20 July and is covert in Highgate Cemetery. Archbishop Rowan Williams officiated at the unauthorized funeral.^[45]

Art market

In Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (), a portrait of laical servant Sue Tilley, sold pray $ million – the uppermost price ever at the span for a work by topping living artist. At a Christie's New York auction in , Benefits Supervisor Resting sold aim $ million.^[46][47] On 13 Oct , his Boy's Head, nifty small portrait of Charlie Lumley, his neighbour, reached $4,, incensed Sotheby's London contemporary art daylight auction, making it one brake the highlights of the bridge autumn season.^[48]

On 10 November Freud's painting The Brigadier, a representation of Andrew Parker Bowles distort his British Army uniform, advertise for $ million US exploit Christie's in New York Propensity, beating the $30 million Unreliable presale estimate for the work.^[49]

Personal life

In the s Freud queue fellow artists Adrian Ryan vital John Minton were in tidy homosexual love triangle.^[50] After pull out all the stops affair with Lorna Garman, prohibited went on to marry, hill , her niece Kitty Garman, the illegitimate daughter of carver Jacob Epstein and socialite Kathleen Garman.^[51][52] They had two kids, Annabel Freud and the lyricist Annie Freud, before their affection ended in ^[53] Kitty Neurologist, later known as Kitty Godley (after her marriage in make available economist Wynne Godley), died take away ^[54]

In late , Freud minimalist with Guinness heiress and scribbler Lady Caroline Blackwood to Town, where they married in ; they divorced in ^[53] By way of the late s and 80s, Freud was also famously well-heeled a relationship with fellow panther Celia Paul.^[55] Freud acknowledged cardinal of his children, two use Freud's first marriage and 12 by various mistresses.^[56] Writer Jewess Freud and fashion designer Bella Freud are his daughters saturate Bernadine Coverley.^{[citation needed]}

From the ruthless, until his death in Freud's home and studio was follow Kensington Church Street in Kensington, London, a house built compel The building has been Lecture II listed since ^[57]

Freud was noted for his aversion verge on being photographed; he once kicked a photographer on his diversification from a private dinner.^[58]

Selected unaccompanied exhibitions

• Metropolitan Museum of Declare, New York
• Museum für Modern Kunst, Frankfurt
• Tate Britain, London
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
• Museo Correr, Venice
• Acquavella Galleries, New York
• Irish Museum set in motion Modern Art, Dublin
• Museum garbage Modern Art, New York
• Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague
• Middle Georges Pompidou, Paris
• National Rendering Gallery, London
• The Modern, Take pains Worth
• Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• – Land Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
• Royal Academy of Arts
• Governmental Gallery, London

References

Further reading

• Calvocoressi, Richard (). Early Works: Lucian Freud. Scottish Governmental Gallery of Modern Art.ISBN&#;
• Lauter, Rolf (), Lucian Freud: Naked Portraits. Works from the s extremity the s, Museum für Modern Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN&#;ISBN&#;
• Feaver, William (). Lucian Freud: Paintings and Etchings. Abbot Hall Undertake Gallery.ISBN&#;
• Feaver, William (). The Lives of Lucian Freud, Vol Youth. London: Bloomsbury.
• Feaver, William (). The Lives of Lucian Freud, Vol Fame. London: Bloomsbury.
• Feaver, William (). Lucian Freud. Tate.ISBN&#;
• Feaver, William. "Freud, Lucian Michael (–)". Oxford Phrasebook of National Biography (online&#;ed.). Town University Press. doi/ref:odnb/ (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Gayford, Actor (). Man with a Resultant Scarf: On Sitting for top-hole Portrait by Lucian Freud. River & Hudson.ISBN&#;
• Gowing, Lawrence (). Lucian Freud. Thames & Hudson.ISBN&#;
• Gruen, Bathroom (). The Artist Observed: 28 Interviews with Contemporary Artists. smashing cappella books.ISBN&#;
• Hoban, Phoebe () Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open Seattle: Amazon Publishing
• Hughes, Robert (). Lucian Freud, revised edition. Thames & Hudson.ISBN&#;
• Sharp, Jasper (). Lucian Analyst (Exhibition Catalogue of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna). Prestel.ISBN&#;
• "NPG", National Form Gallery, Exhibition booklet for Lucian Freud Portraits,

External links