Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings

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Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings

Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings

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Lucian Freud, in Starr Figura (ed.), Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008), p. 15. At the time I bumped into Esther Freud I was interested in figuring out how her father worked on his etching plates. They were so built up – and he kept on at each of them for so long – that I assumed he must have drawn a faint sketch first and bitten it in acid before recoating the plate and working on the portrait layer by layer. This is what Rembrandt did, overwhelming his initial drawing with successive richer ones. Or perhaps, like Morandi, he controlled the depth of his etched lines very carefully, rendering pallor or darkness with acid as he would with shades of paint. Girl with a White Dog, (1950-51) attests to the development of Freud’s signature style. The muse is Freud’s own wife, Kitty Garman, who reclines on a sofa facing the viewer directly. Despite the flatness and Freud’s signature analytic distance from the sitter, the clear focus on her exposed skin suggests a sense of intimacy with her body that would come to define his later nude portraits.

Lucian Michael Freud OM CH [1] ( / f r ɔɪ d/; 8 December 1922– 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.Tania Sutton, a director at the gallery and member of staff for over 25 years, has chosen Lucian Freud’s portrait of his daughter, Bella.

In contrast to the attention Freud devoted to composing his images, the production of these prints was rather rudimentary. Freud, working alone, etched images on prepared copper plates and used a sink in his hotel room for the acid bath. A local printer, found with the help of Picasso's nephew Javier Vilato, pulled the proofs. Etching involved collaboration. Freud was introduced to Balakjian by the artist Celia Paul in 1986, and Balakjian went on to process and print Freud’s plates for the rest of his life (even when, after an outburst, Freud switched technicians for the biting of his plates, he returned to Balakjian for the proofing). The partnership appears to have encouraged Freud to go further. ‘It was stimulating to give Marc the plate and see what he would make of it,’ he told the curator Starr Figura. Balakjian would make several proofs, sometimes on different papers, and wait for Freud to choose between them. Anyone who has a chance to see Balakjian’s prints in person will notice not only their technical sumptuousness but the subtle way in which he introduced a tonal warmth to Freud’s harsh lines. A 2015 essay by Balakjian, who died in 2017, is included in the catalogue raisonné, and a set of 142 printer’s proofs showing different stages of work was acquired from his estate by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2019. The relaxed intimacy captured in this etching is characteristic of Freud’s tendency to avoid dictating the poses of his sitters. As the artist has explained: ‘I am only interested in painting the actual person; in doing a painting of them, not in using them to some ulterior end of art. For me, to use someone doing something not native to them would be wrong’ (quoted in Hughes 2000, p.20). For Freud, it was vital to paint and draw only people he knew well and he therefore regarded all images to be about himself, claiming that ‘my work is purely autobiographical. It is about myself and my surroundings’ (quoted in Feaver 2002, p.35).Lauter, Rolf (2001). "Lucian Freud, naked portraits". collections.britishart.yale.edu . Retrieved 4 February 2020. Freud was born in Berlin in 1922. His father was the Jewish architect Ernst Freud; his grandfather was psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In 1933 the family fled to Britain. Freud studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham, as well as Goldsmith’s College in London. His early work had a sharp, surreal quality, often consisting of still lifes and landscapes.

Gayford, Martin (2010). Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-23875-2

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you. Lucian Freud (British [born Germany], 1922–2011). The Egyptian Book, 1994. Etching; plate: 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in. (29.8 x 29.8 cm), sheet: 16 3/4 x 18 1/2 in. (42.5 x 47 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 1995 (1995.146)



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