Lucian Freud Portraits - Softcover

Howgate Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1855144425 ISBN 13: 9781855144422

Publisher: National Portrait Gallery, 2012

Synopsis

Lucian Freud Portraits surveys his portraits and figure paintings from across his long career. Drawing together the finest portraits from public and private collections around the world, the book explores Freud's stylistic development and technical virtuosity. A series of previously unpublished interviews conducted by Michael Auping between May 2009 and January 2011 reveals the artists thoughts on the complex relationship between artist and sitter, the particular challenges of painting nudes and self-portraits, and his views on other painters he admired. Freud's psychological portraits are often imbued with a mood of alienation. A private man, the artists close relationship with his sitters was played out behind the closed door of the studio. Frequently there is the sense of an emotionally charged drama unfolding, but his subjects remain elusive. Sitters represented in the book include family members, particularly his mother, Lucie, and artists such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and David Hockney. In the early 1990s Freud produced a series of monumental paintings of the performance artist Leigh Bowery and Bowery's friend Sue Tilley, the benefits supervisor, examples of which are reproduced in this book.

About this title

About the Author

Sarah Howgate, Curator of Contemporary Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her previous exhibitions include David Hockney Portraits, a retrospective of the artist's works at the National Portrait Gallery, London, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.|Michael Auping, Chief Curator at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. He is well known as a curator and scholar of Abstract Expressionism. His conversations with artists have been published as 30 Years: Interviews and Outtakes.|John Richardson, a friend of Lucian Freud and author of A Life of Picasso.

Review

"Splendid."—Wall Street Journal (Wall Street Journal)

 “Remarkable . . . brings together the portraits of one of the masters of the form.”—Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly)

“Often hailed as the finest portrait artist of the past century, Freud’s probing oils and etchings get fresh consideration in [this] monograph filled with 200 color images, essays and interviews.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

“A vital, robust account of the artist’s most important subjects: people from all walks of life rendered with unflinching psychological and physical realism.”—K. Rhodes, Choice (K. Rhodes Choice)

Edition details

• Publisher: National Portrait Gallery
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1855144425
• ISBN 13: 9781855144422
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 258