Lucian Freud devoted almost his entire career to the human figure. Although associated with the loose group of figurative painters later described by R. B. Kitaj as the ‘School of London’, Freud’s work developed along a highly individual path. His earliest paintings of the 1940s are small, meticulously painted works that reveal the influence of surrealism and German expressionism, placing people, animals and plants in quietly unsettling combinations. By the early 1950s, however, he had turned increasingly towards portraiture, which gradually became an almost exclusive preoccupation, with the naked human figure its most compelling form.
While his first full-length ‘naked portrait’ did not appear until 1966, from the 1950s onwards Freud explored the human body with an unprecedented intensity, abandoning the fine linear precision of his early work for broader brushes, thicker paint and an increasingly physical treatment of flesh. Freud painted almost exclusively from life, insisting that his sitters remain present throughout the lengthy creation of each work, even while he painted backgrounds or apparently insignificant details. This prolonged engagement created an unusual intimacy between artist and sitter, with conversation becoming an important part of the process. Freud himself remarked that he knew a painting was complete only when it began to feel as though someone else had painted it.
His subjects were overwhelmingly drawn from his own life – family members, lovers, friends, fellow artists, assistants and recurring models. The portraits rarely sought to flatter, as Freud explored the physical and psychological presence of those closest to him, often depicting them reclining on beds or sofas, isolated within sparsely furnished interiors.
Among Freud’s most celebrated sitters were fellow painters Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, Soho muse Henrietta Moraes, the performance artist Leigh Bowery, Sue Tilley (‘Big Sue’), whose monumental naked portraits became some of his best-known works, and his long-serving studio assistant David Dawson, who remained his principal model during the final years of his life. Near the end of his career he also produced a striking nude portrait of supermodel Kate Moss, before returning to Dawson for the unfinished painting of Dawson with his dog Eli that remained on his easel at his death.
The paintings are shown here in chronological order, from early studies in the 1940s to work completed shortly before he died.
At the end we have added some of his etchings and drawings. Often made immediately after completing a painted portrait, the prints allowed him to revisit the same sitter in a different pose, drawing directly onto the copper plate from life. Like the paintings, the etchings and drawings share the same intense scrutiny, psychological depth and unwavering commitment to direct observation that characterise his work.
