Lucian Freud, Sigmund's Grandson: Cruel Lover, Terrible Father and Haunting Painter (NSFW)

Sigmund Freud may have mastered the dark corners of the psyche, but his grandson Lucian certainly called dibs on all the shadowy secrets embedded in human flesh. The German artist has become one of the most iconic painters of the 20th century, captivating the world with his grotesque yet gorgeous portrayals of the animal side of human existence.

OLD MASTER Left: Freud and one of his many lovers, Alexi Williams-Wynn, pose for The Painter Surprised by a Naked Admirer in his Holland Park studio in 2005. Right: Reflection (Self-Portrait), 1985., PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN RIDDY/PAINTING © THE LUCIAN FREUD ARCHIVE.

Lucian Freud & Queen Elizabeth

A photo posted by Freud Quotes (@freud.quotes) on Aug 9, 2015 at 11:07am PDT

10 Lucian Freud Paintings That Will Make You Fear Flesh

Nude with Leg Up (Leigh Bowery)

Painter Working, Reflection

Self Portrait

Baby on a Green Sofa

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping

Naked Girl

Portrait of Rose

Standing by the Rags

Naked Man, Back View

Portrait of the Hound

Watch Lucian Freud’s Very Last Day of Painting (2011)

7 Lucian Freud Books

#1

Lucian Freud: Painting People

#2

Lucian Freud by William Feaver

#3

Lucian Freud Portraits

#4

A Painter's Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud

#5

Breakfast with Lucian

#6

Lucian Freud on Paper

#7

Freud At Work: Lucian Freud in conversation with Sebastian Smee. Photographs by David Dawson and Bruce Bernard

Francis Bacon & Lucian Freud

A photo posted by Freud Quotes (@freud.quotes) on Aug 9, 2015 at 11:05am PDT

Source: 10 Lucian Freud Paintings That Will Make You Fear Flesh 

See also

The Rabbit Dreams of Freud's eccentric niece Martha

Lucian Freud: Mapping the Human

Buy Lucian Freud: Mapping the Human here.

Renowned artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) is commemorated in an exhibition of fifty portraits spanning his working life, held at "The National Portrait Gallery London" from February to May 2012. The review explores the development of his art from the potent and hyper-sensed studies of the 1940s to major paintings in the later phase, where the artist engaged in a complex and sometimes brutal meditation on the human being, drawn from an intimate engagement with the sitter. Freud's unsparing eye maps his subjects, sustaining single handed an almost unique commitment to the ambitions of high art, grounded in the canons of classic Western tradition. The monograph also includes a review of Freud's figure drawings, exhibited at Blain|Southern Gallery.

Marina Vaizey is an art critic, lecturer and traveller; her books include The Artist as Photographer, 100 Masterpieces of Art; Great Women Collectors. She was the art critic for the Financial Times for four years, and The Sunday Times for eighteen. She has curated several exhibitions and written many catalogues. She has been a Trustee for several national museums.

Nicholas James studied painting with Frank Auerbach and Keith Vaughan at the Slade School UCL. He formed Cv Publications in 1992 and Cv/Visual Arts Research in 1995.

Lucian Freud - Quotes

"I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen. Perhaps if painters did know how it was going to turn out they wouldn't bother actually to do it."
― Lucian Freud
Quote source: Man with a Blue Scarf page 83.

"The only secret I can claim to have is concentration, and that's something that can't be taught."
― Lucian Freud
Quote source: Man with a Blue Scarf page 208.

"I want paint to work as flesh... my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them ... As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does."
― Lucian Freud

"I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness."
― Lucian Freud

"The painting is always done very much with [the model's] co-operation. The problem with painting a nude, of course, is that it deepens the transaction. You can scrap a painting of someone's face and it imperils the sitter's self-esteem less than scrapping a painting of the whole naked body."
― Lucian Freud

"I don't want any colour to be noticeable... I don't want it to operate in the modernist sense as colour, something independent... Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid."
― Lucian Freud

"The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh. The effect that they make in space is as bound up with them as might be their colour or smell ... Therefore the painter must be as concerned with the air surrounding his subject as with the subject itself. It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out."
― Lucian Freud

"A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure."
― Lucian Freud

On Models: "And, since the model he faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture, since the picture is going to be there on its own, it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model."
― Lucian Freud
Quote source: "Some Thoughts on Painting" by Lucian Freud in Encounter, vol 3 no 1, July 1954, page 23.