Lucian Freud

"I want paint to work as flesh... my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them ... As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does." Lucian Freud started working full time as an artist in 1942 after his career in the merchant navy was short lived, he had only served for 3 months.

His impasto paintings and portraits are what have made Freud such an esteemed artist however his early work was more surrealism based, he used thin paint in this kind of work. He later changed his style to portraits and his impasto was much thicker then his early work, he excluded other styles and drifted away from the surrealism style and moved onto painting nudes, most of his renown came from his portraits of nude models. He preferred to use family members or close friends as it would make his paintings more intimate and emotion based. "The problem with painting a nude, of course, is that it deepens the transaction. You can scrap a painting of some one's face and it imperils the sitter's self-esteem less than scrapping a painting of the whole naked body."

He uses strong brush strokes and many thick layers of paints to define texture in his work, the way he paints makes the colours he use seem to merge and become a whole rather then singular patches of paint despite the fact he clears his brush after each stroke. I like Lucian Freud's work mostly because of the detail and textured look of his flesh filled images, you can see every blemish and spoil in the models he paints and sometimes himself. I think this is why he prefers to paint people he is familiar with not only because of the fact that the body and faces are known to him but also he is able to go into detail and depth of the person without really offending them, he has said when he is paying a model he doesn't get the same kind of response as they don't truly want to be there. "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."

He is an artist with a very unique style and overall look to his images, his work is easily recognisable.

Biography:
http://www.leninimports.com/lucian_freud_bio.html

Marion Boddy Evans - Lucian Freud Biography:
http://painting.about.com/od/famouspainters/p/bio_LucianFreud.htm