Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud OM CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impastoed portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time. His works are noted for their psychological penetration and their often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth8 December 1922
CityBerlin, Germany
art spring promise
A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then the painter realises that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope the picture might spring to life.
thinking use being-there
A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.
art character thinking
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art. Eliot said that art is the escape from personality, which I think is right. We know that Velázquez embezzled money from the Spanish court and wanted power and so on, but you can't see this in his art.
people care rooms
I work from the people that interest me, and that I care about, in rooms that I live in and know. I use the people to invent my pictures, and I can work more freely when they are there.
art would-be use
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.
lying would-be bits
I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness.
I never think about my style but just try and make the pictures look believable.
art littles rooms
I always felt that my work hadn't much to do with art; my admirations for other art had very little room to show themselves in my work because I hoped that if I concentrated enough the intensity of scrutiny alone would force life into the pictures. I ignored the fact that art, after all, derives from art. Now I realize that this is the case.
people paint spite
I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.
art character artist
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art
art giving trying
I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.
ask fascinated fellow human interested
You ask why I'm fascinated by the human figure? As a human animal, I am interested in some of my fellow animals: in their minds and bodies.