Header Photo: Low resolution detail from the haunting, hypnotic & jaw-droppingly beautiful Lucian Freud painting.Girl in a Dark Jacket, 1947. Quite rightly it was used for the cover for the mother of all art books, Lucian Freud - Portraits (2012). Simply a book to own before you die. © The Lucian Freud Archive (as are all images). Lucian Freud Books, Exhibition Catalogues, Dvds and In Depth Reviews Search Site Images Lucian Freud exhibition catalogues@ ebay.co.uk (direct link to items)
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With the war over and troubled adolescent years behind him, Freud began his relentless pursuit of the elusive, faithful portrait. He began this pursuit by painting his first wife Kitty (married in 1948) again and again. After his divorce, he continued this search by repeatedly painting his second wife Caroline (married in 1952) and a wide group of painters and friends. The results were always uncomfortable, disconcerting, and suggestive of the existential crisis that drove Freud’s work during the early part of his career. Witness the prize-winning picture for the Festival of Britain, entitled Interior, Paddington (1951). As artist and friend Bruce Bernard describes the piece: "Harry [Diamond]’s problematic, if not explicitly threatening, figure is ingeniously and incongruously coupled with one of the most memorable potted plants in the history of art, set in the most solid of plant pots, not quite hallucinatory but enhanced to a disturbing degree. Man and pot are both standing on an unforgettable painted carpet, and only in the view from the window, with the waif on the pavement below, is the curious, still tension -- perhaps necessarily -- dissipated." This is Freud at his young best. The subject of the painting, who looks as though he's just about to go toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of potted plants, was Harry Diamond (1924-2009), a photographer best known for his photographs of the art icons that frequented Soho in the 60s and 70s. Freud was one of course but also Auerbach, Michael Andrews, Paolozzi et al. Studio space in Paddington at the time to rent or buy was cheap. Freud bought the vivid red carpet in the picture from a junk shop in the Harrow Road. Outside the window is the Grand Union Canal. The most revealing (i.e. the one with the most gossip) book I've found on the world of Freud is Breakfast with Lucian (direct link to the book @ amazon.co.uk). Lucian Freud exhibition catalogues@ ebay.co.uk (direct link to items)
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Lucian Freud - Portraits Book Review Lucian Freud - William Feaver (2005) Book Review Lucian Freud - Paintings (1989) Book Review Lucian Freud - Taschen Book (2007) Lucian Freud - Marlborough Exhibition Catalogue, October 1963 Lucian Freud - Etchings 1946-2004 Book Lucian Freud - The Painter's Etchings Book Etchings of Lucian Freud - A Catalogue Raisonne 1946-1995 Book Lucian Freud - Acqueforti Italian Book Lucian Freud by William Feaver Book The Glass Tower Illustrated by Lucian Freud Book Lucian Freud - Arts Council 1974 Catalogue Lucian Freud - Recent Drawings and Etchings 1994 Catalogue Lucian Freud - Recent Etchings 1995-1999 Marlborough Graphics Exhibition Catalogue, 1999 Lucian Freud - Drawings, Selected by William Feaver Book Lucian Freud - The Studio Book A Painter's Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud Book Search Site Top of Page |
