Preceden

Lucien Freud

  • independent artist

Life Events

born in Berlin

1922

  • escaped when Hitler became leader

moved to England

1933

moved in w/ John Craxton in St. John's Wood

1942

met Picasso

1946

divorced 1st wife's niece, Kitty

1953

married Caroline Blackwood

1953

Paintings

'John Craxton'

1942

  • early style
  • detailed but naive
  • based on Pre-war Germany painting 'Neue Sachlichkeit= new objectivity

'The Painter's Room'

1943

  • owned the zebra
  • went to goldsmith classes
  • dabbled in Surrealism-> random object encounter
  • in a cultural set

'Dead Heron'

1945

  • Lorna brought him dead heron
  • each feather= different
  • almost photographic
  • flat painting= emblematic-> suffering
  • dead but beautiful
  • Freud paints imperfections

'Woman with a Daffodil'

1945

-London Gallery giving him a salary
- model= wife Lorna Wishart

'Girl in Dark Jacket'

1947

  • dumped Lorna to go out w/ her neice
  • flat
  • illustrative
  • individual details, incredibly detailed

'Girl with a White Dog'

1951

  • lived in Clifton Hill
  • drab interior
  • set her up on drab matress
  • shows the mechanics
  • odd b/c she's bored
  • no element of imagination, factual, literal, absolute observation

'Interior in Paddington'

1951

  • painting for Festival of Britain
  • impermanent
  • painted in a flat he hired
  • transient, temporary
  • unfurnished house
  • naive and depressing
  • shows workings of the painting, see the mechanics, realise it's not real

'Portrait of Francis Bacon'

1951

  • incredibly detailed
  • not completely in proportion
  • naive detail
  • maybe not representational as it's out of proportion

'Hotel Bedroom'

1953

  • isolation and impermanence -Gustave Caillebotle
  • financed impressionists, balcony

'Baby on a Green Sofa'

1961

  • big brush strokes
  • brushes which follow contours
  • observes-> each brushstroke= careful mark
  • influence from Frank Auerback (German born 1931)
  • thick paint

'Naked Girl'

1966

-triumph of techinque over imagination
- perfects his technique, doesn't move on
- thick paint
- plenty of colours
- likes to show blemishes

'The Painter's Mother III'

1972

'I could not have [painted her] if she'd been interested'
- drab interiors
- his grey studio
- broke the rules
- after her husband died
- closest he gets to emotion

'Large Interior After Watteau'

1981 - 1983

  • hipster AKA rich but pretends to be Bohemian
  • elaborately mundane
  • biggest work

'Fraud Benefits Superviser'

1993

  • most expensive painting ever sold at the time

'Heads of Leigh Bowrey'

1993

  • weird preformer in London
  • no feeling, just paints flesh
  • shows people in his studio, doesn't pretend they're in a different place

Exhibitions

First one man show

1943