Lucian Freud - on film, in words and ink

Images of Lucian Freud
pen and sepia ink in sketchbook
all images copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Robert Genn has included a Youtube Slideshow of the work of Lucian Freud on his current 'clickback' URL. Here's what he has to say about him in this morning's Painter' Keys letter

Lucian Freud (b.1922) is a German-born British painter with a brilliantly straight eye. His subjects include the abject, isolated, alienated and the thoughtful. Showing the fragility of the current human condition, plain truth mingles with stressed awkwardness. The obese, the elderly and the weak are examined without pity - many in sad resignation or outright depression. With Freud we observe the touch of human tenderness, the trusting beauty of animal bonding, the specter of immanent death and the plaintive hope for the morrow.

Do take a look. Freud is a quite remarkable painter with paintings in several museum collections. A futher slideshow can be seen here. (I really haven't a clue as to who created either site.)

'I paint people', Freud has said, 'not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be'.

I had the very great privilege recently of seeing two films about Lucian Freud directed and introduced by Jake Auerbach which were shown, to a packed house, at the Prince's Drawing School in late March. (Jake Auerbach is the son of Frank Auerbach, a friend of Lucian Freud for the last 50 years or so.)

The first film has only been screened once on BBC Omnibus and the second (longer) film has never previously been shown in the UK at all. They were both made in 1988 to coincide with the Freud retrospective at the Hayward Gallery (4h February - 17th April 1988). Freud has been rarely photographed and he'd never before been interviewed on camera.

In the BBC newsnight review of the later 2002 Freud Retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain, Mark Lawson starts by commenting that

Sigmund Freud was famous for explaining everything. Lucian never explains anything whatsoever. (Mark Lawson/BBC)

By way of contrast, the fims I saw were, I think, the first and last time Freud has ever been seen on film talking about his work. Here are some of the notes I made of some of the things he said. He aims to work with people who are not 'being models' because he wants to paint 'them' not a figure. His paintings of plants (an example) "nearly drove him round the bend" and made him feel like he was orchestrating a whole symphony.

He works in the daytime and at night but finds he sometimes sees much more in daylight. He works under a skylight and finds bright sun to be very challenging. Going to the National Gallery in London is for him a bit like going to the doctor - it's what you need to do when you're out of sorts and need some help. He likes almost everything Constable did - and the way he used people in his landscapes. And these are some quotations from the film.......

"I'm not very analytical"
"I'm self-questioning but only up to a point"
"I never think about technique, it holds you up"
"You have to paint on trust"
"I'm fairly immune from praise and abuse"

Freud has a fascinating face. He was 66 when filmed but actually looked younger. This is a self-portrait painted three years earlier. I tried drawing his head in pen and ink and you can see the results in this blog post. Bear in mind that my subject was moving, I didn't know when a pose would reappear and I was in the dark! Most are 'starts' only and the only one I got anywhere near developing fully has got a 'wonky' profile. What I'd call a "bit iffy".

See the links below for more images of his work and commentary on it.

Links:

• The Tate Britain website about the Freud Retrospective (20 June 22 september 2002). 60 years of his work and 150 works
  
• several images in a room guide, some with audio and more information about individual pictures
• a commentary on Freud's Technique
  
• Chronology of Lucian Freud up until 2002
• Guardian article about the 2002 Freud Retrospective by his curator William Feaver
• Guardian Profile of Lucian Freud by Jonathan Jones (2 April 2004)
• BBC Newsnight Review of Freud Retrospective (21 June 2002)
  
• Lucian Freud
  
• The Royal Collection
  
• The National Portrait Gallery - artist of 3 portraits and sitter associated with 23 portraits
• Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
  
• Web Museum
• Artchive
• Artcylopedia
  
• Wikipedia entry
  
• Lucian Freud - a recent etching (2005) of Martin Gayford