LUCIAN FREUD (1922 –
2011)
Lucian Freud was born in Germany in 1922 and moved to
England in 1933 with his parents who wanted to escape the tyranny of Nazism,
which was about to impact the whole of Europe and beyond.
Apart from his portraits and life paintings, and indeed
early still life compositions, Freud produced many etchings, which he continued
to do throughout his career, but it is his oil portraits and nudes for which he
is renowned, and, by many, he is regarded as the leading figurative artist of
the 20th century.
Nonetheless, his work has not always been favourably received. His portrait of the Queen is a case in
point. It was said to make her majesty
look unhappy and old. Bearing in mind
his modus operandi it would be surprising if he had painted a flattering
picture because one of his bon mot was a
wish to paint a searching picture not like the person before him,
but a painting of them.
During the 1940s, after undertaking his initial artistic
training at the Central School of Art in London, Freud is said to have spent
some time at Benton End (a house now in private ownership) near Hadleigh,
Suffolk, which was the home of Sir Cedric Morris and Lett-Haines, founders of
the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. An interesting portrait by Sir Cedric Morris of Freud when he was
a young student of 19 years of age may give an indication of the influence
Morris might have had on Freud’s work.
It is a portrait that scrutinizes the sitter, a feature that was to
become a significant element in Freud’s own portrait and life paintings. The portrait is full-face three quarter
length and is arranged simplistically without a sophisticated background or
props, relying on the gaze of the sitter to draw us into the portrait.
Lucien Freud by Sir Cedric Morris, Tate.org.uk
Freud was later a student at Goldsmith College and after
that he formed a group with other figurative painters which included Francis
Bacon, Ronald Kitaj, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Robert Colquhoun, Michael
Andrews, Robert MacBryde and Reginald Gray, which became known as the School of
London. These painters were effectively
going against the flow, in terms of movements, as Expressionism and later
Abstract Expressionism were taking off, certainly in America at that time. Most
of these artists painted in a representational style, contrasting only in each
individual artist’s method of seeking to pursue a deeper more convincing
truth. I wonder about the
cross-fertilization of ideas learned from each other, surely one of the joys of
working in close proximity to other artists.
I am thinking of the extensive and heavy impasto employed by Frank
Auerbach in much of his work almost obliterating the subject, Francis Bacon’s
visceral painting techniques, and maybe Robert Colquhoun’s palette. It is
likely that even sub-consciously, some techniques and methods would have been
taken up by each and every artist. We
see throughout the history of art that ideas spark from one artist to the other
so that, through innovative modulations and departures, a new style evolves and
flourishes. Cubism is a case in point
having started with the work of Cezanne, and subsequently revealed through
Braque, Picasso and Gris.
Singer-by-low-larger, Robert Colquhoun richardwarren.wordpress.com
Self Portrait, Robert Colquhoun (tmblr.com)
Lucian Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud and it is
interesting that perhaps this heritage enabled him to explore personality
through form rather than tapping into the psychology of his sitters through
visual expression, i.e. as Rembrandt did, but ultimately the scrutiny of
character is palpable.
During interviews on BBC Television with his numerous
daughters and family members I gained an insight into this rather aloof father
and grand-father. Like Picasso, Freud
had many liaisons and some 14 children as a result. He was married twice, first to Kathleen Garman, daughter of the
sculptor, Jacob Epstein. The marriage produced two daughters, then after a
divorce he later married Lady Caroline Blackwood in 1953, an heiress of the
Guinness Beer fortunes. They
subsequently divorced in 1959, after which he was said to have become almost
suicidal, according to his friend Francis Bacon. Freud was drinking heavily and becoming involved in brawls. His second wife was said to have been the
only woman who broke his heart.
The media pundits had not always acclaimed his work, some
criticised it as indicative of misogyny because of the overt exploration of
flesh and non-flattering paintings of women.
He was far from that in my view, I see his work as crushingly honest in
his attempt to explore the quintessential structure of the human body - flesh
and bones and form laid bare. From the ‘50s onwards he concentrated on
painting, nudes and portraits. His
early work was representational with fine brushwork, whereby he cleaned his
brush after every stroke to maintain the purity of the skin tones. The style at
that time is in an almost Surrealist manner, for example Girl with the White
Dog. Those detractors who see his later work as uncomfortably stark can see
that his style has developed through a highly trained eye capable of sensitive,
searching and candid refinement of detail.
Lucian Freud, Girl with the white dog (ayay.co.uk)
Lucian Freud, Benefits Supervisor
Lucian Freud, Detail, Benefits Supervisor
I was lucky enough to go to the National Portrait Gallery’s
exhibition of Freud’s Retrospective in February 2011, and remember when I first
saw the vast canvas of Sue Tilley,
the ‘Benefits Supervisor’, a canvas
almost 60inches by just over 86 inches
My initial reaction was one of awe, tinged with a disturbing
element of disgust, I suppose because of the penetrating monumentality of the
work. However, because I passed the painting several times whilst viewing other
paintings I became more familiar and eventually thought it quite beautiful,
sensual and alive with the sofa echoing her curves. It exudes a feeling of indolent corporeality. Freud loved to use Cremnitz White and
apparently purchased practically the entire stock that was available at the
time. Because the paint is lead based
it was difficult to source, and still is today, for safety reasons. The paint has a yellowish tinge and is quite
thick and buttery, it probably contributes uniquely to the distinctive flesh
colour that Freud achieves. He obviously felt it was important to use it and I
think this was probably mixed with the Umbers, Siennas, Ochre, Naples Yellow,
so-called earth colours, all of which contribute to the creamy warmth of live
flesh. I think I also see Viridian for shadows in Head of a Woman (Hartlepool
Museum), and possibly Indian Yellow, although some of the modelling shadows
look grey, though I don’t doubt there are subtle hints of purple too. The impasto texture, which is varied throughout
his work from smooth, dragged, layered, stippled, to built-up patches, is
dynamic in its exploration of the skin’s small imperfections that help to
render the flesh so convincingly. It is this technique that provides a gritty
almost tactile quality in Freud’s work, which is a feast for the eye.
Another of Freud’s exhibited works which I enjoyed was the paintings of Sue Tilley’s friend, Leigh Bowery, whose form is depicted with equal depth and realism, it has the same visceral quality that enables us to almost smell human scent. Freud said he wanted his paintings to be “of” the person not “like” them. It is a subtle distinction but goes straight to the heart of his work ethic. Lucian Freud Quote "I get my ideas for pictures from watching people I want to work from moving about naked. I want to allow the nature of my model to affect the atmosphere and to some degree the composition. I have watched behaviour change human forms". It is evident from this quotation that Freud sees the person as a real person interacting with the environment not a person posed in a static almost unnatural position. He wants to glean as much as possible from his sitter’s presence in the room, allowing them to relax into a natural state rather than a pose. It is possible to see this with most of his life studies. Freud was a stickler for demanding commitment from his subjects who were required to sit for maybe several hours at a stretch. It appeared to be a requirement before undertaking the painting. Often his subjects were friends and family so he was able to observe at close hand, their whole being. It is interesting that sitters are sometimes portrayed as being asleep, bearing in mind the hours they have been in situ, it is not surprising.
It is possible to see Freud’s penetrating gaze in
photographs, I also sense a timidity, almost a vulnerability together with a
steady determination.
Throughout his life, Freud was on the edge of society, a
lifestyle, similar to the that he may have experienced with Sir Cedric Morris
and Lett Haines whose social lives were what might have been considered at the
time in the realms of the dark side.
Certainly Freud seemed to frequent the slightly seedier areas, and was I
think drawn to the people who frequented those parts because they were probably
larger than life characters. But there
was a dichotomy. He compartmentalized
life, and he was known to have joined the Princess Margaret set
occasionally. It is apparent from the
interiors and props in his studio, particularly the old couch in the painting
of the Benefits Supervisor, that he lived to paint rather than painting to
live. Having said that I believe he enjoyed good food, and Sue Tilley mentioned
in a BBC interview that they would sometimes go to a restaurant for an
expensive meal.
House-plants and animals were frequently included in some of
Freud’s earlier paintings, especially in the ‘60s. Later his work depicts roofs
through the windows of his studio, but these were secondary to the main thrust
of his composition, which was the portrait or nude, the surroundings remind one
of Art Povera.
His mother, a German Jew, has featured in his work. He did a series of paintings spending
thousands of hours on them after she had attempted to commit suicide. Like many of his other paintings his mother
was painted reclining in bed. The painting of his mother resting is sensitively
painted and is less fierce than his usual style, it depicts a frail old lady
dressed in white, gazing into empty space, and one is reminded of holocaust
victims in those bare surroundings. It
is said that such paintings illustrating a son’s relationship with his mother
had not been seen since Rembrandt.
Strictly speaking I don’t consider that is the case because we have
Whistler’s mother, which is a beautiful filial painting, depicting a mother’s
piety and bond with her son: An Arrangement in Grey and Black.
Freud then, was an enigmatic private man whose work has
revived the credibility of figurative work, which in the 20th
Century was rejected by Performance Art and Conceptual Art. For that the art
cognoscenti must surely be assured and in some cases pleased, but more
importantly it puts Freud in the pantheon of great artists.
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