Freud, Lucian

Freud, Lucian, 1922–, British painter, b. Berlin. A grandson of Sigmund Freud, he settled in England in 1933 and became a British subject in 1939. Freud is widely regarded as one of the world's finest figurative painters. Maintaining a restrained palette, he has moved from an emphasis on draftsmanship to a more tactile quality. He is especially known for highly expressive, heavily impastoed nudes and portraits painted with a disquieting realism that is at once brutally emphatic and richly detailed. Freud's intensely naked nudes, including Painter and Model (1986–87) and Naked Man, Back View (1992; Metropolitan Museum), have an almost meaty physicality. In portraiture, his best-known works include many self-portraits, for example Reflection with Children (1965) and Painter Working, Reflection (1993), and such works as Francis Bacon (1952; Tate Gallery), David Hockney (2002), and several portraits of his mother (1971–76).

Bibliography

See studies by L. Gowing (1982), B. Bruce and D. Birdsall, ed. (1996), and R. Hughes (1993, rev. ed. 1997).

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Freud, Lucian

(born Dec. 8, 1922, Berlin, Ger.) German-born British painter. Grandson of Sigmund Freud, he moved with his family to London when he was 10. He is known for sombre, realistic figure paintings that represent his subjects' raw physical characteristics and inner tensions; his highly individualistic, coarse style makes no attempt to idealize its usually nude subjects. His work has been internationally influential in reviving a representational style. In 1993 he was awarded the Order of Merit.