Artists - Part 54

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was a major 20th century painter.  Born in Berlin, he was the grandson of Sigmund Freud.  His Jewish family moved to England when he was 10 years old to escape the rise of Nazi Germany.

He painted a large number of portraits, but he is also noted for his nudes, both male and female.  Of course I'm concentrating on the males.  In the photo above, taken in his studio in 1992, he is painting Leigh Bowery, one of his favorite models.

The finished painting, Naked Man Back View, now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  The painting of the obese Bowery challenges our traditional idea of the nude.  The museum calls it a "still life of skin."

Naked Man with Rat, 1977, Art Gallery of Western Australia.  Freud's subjects were never strangers. They were always people in his life – friends, lovers, family and fellow painters.  The subject here is Raymond Jones, who loaned money to Freud to support his gambling debts.  Freud gave him paintings to repay the loans.  The rat was borrowed from one of Freud's girlfriends at the time and it was drugged to keep it docile for the portrait.

Freud was bisexual.  He fathered children with several women, but also had intense relationships with other male artists when he was young.  In Naked Man and his Friend, 1978 (above), the sexual element is implicit.  I haven't seen the model identified, but it looks like Raymond Jones again.

Naked Man on a Bed, 1987.  The strange mishmash at upper right is a mountain of rags that Freud kept in his studio to wipe his paintbrushes.

Two Men, 1987-1988, National Galleries of Scotland.  Sex is only faintly implied by the clothed man resting his hand on the naked man's leg.

Two Men in the Studio, 1987-1988 shows the same two men, but this time the sexual implication is stronger, with one man sleeping in bed while the other has gotten up to stretch.  Again, there's a mountain of rags in the background, along with another painting, this one a female nude, that Freud was presumably working on at the same time.

Leigh Bowery (Seated), 1990.  Bowery, a performance artist, was one of Freud's favorite models.

Nude with Leg Up, 1992, shows Bowery fully exposed to us, resting on the mountain of painter's rags.

And the Bridegroom, 1993, shows Bowery and his new wife Nicola Bateman.  She loved him and married him even though Bowery was gay.  He died of AIDS a year later.

David Dawson was Freud's assistant in the studio, and he also became Freud's model.  In Sunny Morning - Eight Legs, 1997, we see two of Dawson's legs, four legs of Freud's whippet, and two unknown legs under the bed.

David and Eli, 2003-2004, shows David Dawson with another of Freud's dogs.

I have to show you this female nude, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995.  The model, Sue Tilley, worked at the Jobs Centre and was known as "fat Sue".  This painting holds the world record for highest price paid for a painting by a living artist.  It sold at Christie's New York in 2008 for 33.6 million dollars.

We end with this 1993 self-portrait called Painter Working, Reflection.  Lucien Freud died in 2011 at age 88.