Visual Language Magazine Contemporary Fine Art March 2013 Vol 2 No 3

Lucian Freud and Artspan Artists take a
In 2012, a year after his death at the age of 88, there’s hardly been an artist talked about
more frequently than Lucian Freud. In his lifetime he was lauded as an old master, wellloved
by those within the artistic community. Yet in the last two decades of his life, he was
continuously skipped over by dealers and collectors in favor of Hurst’s bedazzled skulls
and the work of various Turner Prize-winners.
It wasn’t until his exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery early last year, that the artist’s
work once again had the Art world abuzz. Freud continued to paint until the day of his
death, and his final labors of love were not lost to both gallery-goers and critics that attended
the blockbuster event. Recently voted the best exhibition in 2012 by The Guardian,
Freud’s portraiture proved that the painter had a tender, loving side, despite his penchant
for what many consider to be crude and cruel depictions.
From nude portraits to both gigantic and close-cropped works, an entire floor of the vast
museum was devoted to the painter and his work. “Not cruelty, but a raw appetite for life
is what came through in this selection of a truly great artist’s works” said Jonathan Jones
of The Guardian. What became apparent through the exhibition was Freud’s desire for
honest depictions—he kept his eye clear, unmarred by sentimentality. “If his art has an icy
hauteur, its lucidity is grandly compassionate for humanity.” said Jones.
Freud’s well-known portrait of Big Sue Tilley entitled Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, shows
one of the painter’s first models displaying her bulk proudly—a slap on the face to the
many airbrushed supermodels in today’s magazines. The huge Irishman – another of
Freud’s greatest subjects – sits perched on a chair many sizes to small for his girth. Then
there are the frequently-occurring familial subjects, such as his doe-eyed daughters Esther
and Bella. Freud has a way of painting children as dolls and society hostesses like tawdry
transvestites.
Many of Freud’s early works featured in the exhibition were particularly unforgiving.
Paintings of his first wife, Kitty Garman displayed incredible tension, love seeming curiously
absent. Hotel Bedroom, a 1954 painting of Freud with an aged version of his second
wife, Caroline Blackwood, presents an undeniably bleak representation of their crumbling
marriage.
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