At the time I bumped into Esther Freud I was interested in figuring out how her father worked on his etching plates. They were so built up – and he kept on at each of them for so long – that I assumed he must have drawn a faint sketch first and bitten it in acid before recoating the plate and working on the portrait layer by layer. This is what Rembrandt did, overwhelming his initial drawing with successive richer ones. Or perhaps, like Morandi, he controlled the depth of his etched lines very carefully, rendering pallor or darkness with acid as he would with shades of paint. Freud’s work is made in an uncompromising and seemingly confrontational style. His attention to detail is at times unnerving and intense, and yet also distinctly compassionate without being sentimental of the human condition. Freud spoke of his famous grandfather Sigmund Freud, saying he would physically asses each patient before approaching anything further. For Freud this was right, as he too approaches each subject, with almost an analytical coolness which produces images of monumental stature, regardless of their actual scale.

Currently on view in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery are works on paper by Lucian Freud and Brice Marden. Although these artists are widely acclaimed for their work in other media, prints play a critical role in their oeuvres. Both artists avidly explored possibilities for printmaking, often developing ideas and innovations that they then applied to work in other media. Their engagement with printmaking—etching in particular—was not only important for the artists, but also had a significant impact on the medium itself by offering up new possibilities.Freud was born in Berlin in 1922. His father was the Jewish architect Ernst Freud; his grandfather was psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In 1933 the family fled to Britain. Freud studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham, as well as Goldsmith’s College in London. His early work had a sharp, surreal quality, often consisting of still lifes and landscapes.

The family emigrated to St John's Wood, London, in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism. Lucian became a British subject in 1939, [4] [5] having attended Dartington Hall School in Totnes, Devon, and later Bryanston School, [6] [7] for a year before being expelled owing to disruptive behaviour. [8] Early career [ edit ] My favourite etching, however, is the monumental head of Freud’s stepson, Kai, an image of overpowering proportions that conveys an air of proximate sorrow. Kai’s head is at least ten, if not twenty, times larger than the viewer’s. His gaze is cast towards the floor and the light catches his lashes. His shoulders have been adjusted but not cleaned up, leaving the remnant of a shrug along with a good few scratches on the plate. It’s a statue and a sketch at the same time. The more you look at it, the more compelling it becomes to try to resolve its irregularity. How is the liquidity in his face achieved? How do the random-seeming dashes on either side of his forehead amount to that contoured effect? Why this patterning on his shirt collar here and a different patterning there? And – lest you think it’s anything other than acutely observed – the angle of his eyeballs is a model of precision. During Freud’s long career, the artist produced only a little over 70 etchings, many of which were not published, existing only as proofs, and many which were produced in editions so small that there is no possibility of any leaving the great collections to which they now belong. Their importance in Freud’s work can be illustrated by referring to the 2007 exhibition at New York’s MoMA entitled Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings, which gathered together 68 of these works and showed them, with 21 related paintings, to a responsive public. Dawson was Freud’s assistant and model from 1990 until the artist’s death in 2011. He posed regularly for Freud and appears in paintings such as Sunny Morning–Eight Legs 1997 (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago). Dawson was himself a painter and a photographer who frequently photographed Freud at work. In a 2004 interview Dawson described how their relationship evolved: Lauter, Rolf: Lucian Freud, in: 10x Malerei. Rubenspreis der Stadt Siegen in Werken der Sammlung Lambrecht-Schadeberg, Siegen 2002, ISBN 3-935874-03-0Freud returned to etching in 1982, after a thirty-four-year hiatus. His etching of his stepson Kai shows his deep interest in capturing the various physical and emotional states of his subjects. Since Freud demanded such a deep commitment from his subjects, requiring almost daily portrait sessions that could last for up to six hours at a time over a period of many months, he refused almost all commissions. Instead, he chose to portray people who were close to him or who intrigued him in some way.

Girl with a White Dog, (1950-51) attests to the development of Freud’s signature style. The muse is Freud’s own wife, Kitty Garman, who reclines on a sofa facing the viewer directly. Despite the flatness and Freud’s signature analytic distance from the sitter, the clear focus on her exposed skin suggests a sense of intimacy with her body that would come to define his later nude portraits.Smith, Roberta (14 December 2007). "Lucian Freud Stripped Bare". The New York Times . Retrieved 22 July 2011. Etching 695 × 545 (27 3/8 × 21 1/2) on Somerset Satin paper 883 × 715 (34 3/4 × 28 1/8); plate-mark 695 × 545 (27 3/8 × 21 1/2); printed by Terry Wilson at Palmtree Editions and published by James Kirkman Ltd, London and Brooke Alexander Inc., New York in an edition of 50 plus 15 artist's proofs Feaver, William. "Freud, Lucian Michael (1922–2011)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/103935. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Bella (1987), a portrait of his daughter, is defined by dense hatching, marking the head’s weight against the pillow, its wisps of hair and the face’s contours. Freud sought further contrast within the image, however. Giving the printer a proof shaded with grey wash to indicate where ink should be left on the plate after wiping, the etching was reproofed until he was satisfied. Craig Hartley describes the result as ‘seductively tonal’, one of Freud’s most beautiful portraits.2 Bella (detail) Catalogues raisonnés often prove unsatisfactory reading experiences…but this one is a pleasure to read. The essays are approachable, the catalogue entries are thorough, with good commentaries. The works develop logically, with some surprises and tours de force. The large size of the book (35 x 30 cm) allows substantial and detailed illustrations, all of which seem to be newly photographed. This certainly whets the appetite for catalogues of the paintings and drawings and reassures readers that the task is entrusted to safe hands. Publisher and authors have done admirably by one of Britain’s most distinguished artists with this impeccable, rigorous and beautiful book.’ – Alexander Adams, The British Art Journal, vol. XXIII, no. 2, Autumn 2022 As with his paintings, Freud did not work from preparatory sketches when making these prints. Instead, they were executed direct on the plate, working in front of the model. Having first established the basic image on the etching plate in white chalk, Freud then developed the motif using an etching needle only. As with all his etchings, Freud obtained effects of tone and texture through the use of line and cross-hatching alone. At the time they were completed, ‘Blond Girl’ and ‘Man Posing’ were most the ambitious etchings the artist had made. They were larger than any of his earlier prints, and ‘Man Posing’, in particular, was more heavily worked than his previous essays in etching, the dense cross-hatching and all-over treatment of detail establishing a precedent in Freud's printmaking oeuvre. London Exhibition Showcases the Best of Bryanston Art and Design". Bryanston Art: Past and Present. Bryanston School. 12 October 2008. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011 . Retrieved 25 July 2011. This phase of printmaking activity followed a series made three years earlier, which marked Freud's return to making prints after a gap of thirty-four years. In 1982 it had been suggested to Freud that he make a number of etchings to accompany a limited edition of Lawrence Gowing's monograph, Lucian Freud, published in the same year. As a result of this suggestion, Freud executed fourteen etchings. All these prints are portraits, mainly studies of heads seen in close-up. Freud's concern with this motif was continued in this second of phase of printmaking in 1984–5 (‘Ib’ and ‘Head of Bruce Bernard’ are both portraits). However, he also extended his range of subject matter to include botany (in ‘Thistle’) and, as ‘Blond Girl’ and ‘Man Posing’ demonstrate, to full-length studies of the naked human body. In this respect P77182 and P77183 both exemplify the principal subject of Freud's painting and are related to specific paintings. ‘Blond Girl’ relates to ‘Blond Girl, Night Portrait’, 1980–5 (repr. Bevan 1986, p.339), while ‘Man Posing’ is associated with ‘Painter and Model’, 1986–7 (repr. Lucian Freud Paintings, exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1987, pl.99 in col.). However, these prints are in no sense reproductions of the unique works. The prints were drawn from life at separate sittings from the related paintings and in both cases Freud commenced the paintings before the prints. Also, as comparison of the prints with the paintings reveals, there are differences in the treatment of the motif. In the case of ‘Blond Girl’, the print isolates the figure, omitting the settee which appears in the painting. In ‘Man Posing’, the spreadeagled male figure is the central subject of the print, whereas in the painting the same male figure is depicted in a similar pose but as part of a composition which also includes a standing female figure. Freud does not consider the identity of the models in either of these prints to be relevant to an appreciation of these works. Although all his images of people are taken from life, he draws a distinction between his studies using anonymous models and portraits of individuals whose identities are known or are revealed.

Past Lots

Freud died in London on 20 July 2011 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery. Archbishop Rowan Williams officiated at the private funeral. [44] Art market [ edit ] Ayers, Robert (18 December 2007). "Curator's Voice: Starr Figura on Lucian Freud's Etchings". BLOUINARTINFO . Retrieved 23 April 2008.