LUCIAN FREUD

Early Life and Education

Freud was born in Berlin to Ernst L. Freud, the fourth child of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and Lucie Brach. The family moved to London in 1933, where young artist grew up and went on to study at Central Saint Martins and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Lucian Freud Artworks

Freud’s main subject and fascination lay with the human face and body, which he explored through portraits of those close to him.

Always painted from life, and from a pose that the models felt comfortable with, Freud’s paintings and drawings reflect his exploration of the human body through its curves and concaves, excesses and recesses, and planes and substances with weight.

Development

Freud was first influenced by surrealism, then later expressionism. He initially painted while seated, studying his subjects from a short distance, and favoured muted colours and sharply delineated forms as seen in Girl with a Kitten (1947).

By the 1950s, the artist had shifted towards a stark realism that would come to define his work, adopting a looser brushwork and a wider range of colours. It was also during this period that he began to paint standing, which allowed him to pay closer attention to the physicality of the human body.

Portraits

Among his first subjects were the artist himself and early paintings such as Man with a Feather (Self-Portrait) (1943) and Man with a Thistle (Self-Portrait) (1946) show Freud’s interest in capturing various details and textures. When painting other people, the artist spent prolonged periods of time observing them, even requiring them to hold a pose for hours in a single session.

Nudes

Freud is also recognised for his nude portraits and studies that he began to paint frequently from the mid-1960s.

In 1993, Freud painted his seminal self-portrait Painter Working, Reflection, which shows the artist standing, nude but for unlaced boots, and holding the tools of his trade in his hands.

Francis Bacon

Freud was close friends with the Irish-born painter Francis Bacon for more than four decades, until they fell out in 1985. Now regarded as two representative figures of contemporary British figurative painting, the two artists shared a commitment to the human figure while diverging in Bacon’s preference to work from photographic images and Freud’s practice working with live models. They also painted each other, including Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), a triptych of oil paintings that show Freud sitting on a wooden chair in a cage from three slightly different vantage points.

Legacy

Freud’s influence on contemporary portraiture is profound, and his works are held in major museums worldwide, including:

• The Art Institute of Chicago
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• National Portrait Gallery, London
• Centre Pompidou, Paris
• Tate Modern, London
• Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum Madrid
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Accolads

• Order of Merit (1993)
• Companion of Honour (1983)

Exhibitions

Lucian Freud has been the subject of both solo exhibitions and group exhibitions at important institutions.

Solo Exhibitions

London’s Hayward Gallery presented the first retrospective exhibition of Freud’s work in 1974, which led to a greater international acclaim, including his solo presentation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1994. More recent solo exhibitions include:

• The National Gallery, London (2022)
• Tate Liverpool (2021)
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2020)
• Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019)

Group Exhibitions

Freud represented Britain at the Venice Biennale alongside Francis Bacon and Ben Nicholson in 1954. Selected group exhibitions including at the following institutions:

• Tate Modern, London (2023)
• Art Gallery of Western Australia (2021)
• Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019)

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Ocula | 2025