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
Lucian Freud quotes about
ideas doctors looks
I use the gallery as if it were a doctor. I come for ideas and help - to look at situations within painting, rather than paintings.
artist surroundings
My work is purely autobiographical... It is about myself and my surroundings.
erotic matter sides
The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter
giving choices looks
When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't. There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.
giving feelings may
The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.
losing problem economic
Losing as much money as I can get hold of is an instant solution to my economic problems.
art taste obsession
A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.
art character artist
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art
excitement should function
The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement
eye sometimes staring
Sometimes, when I've been staring too hard, I've noticed that I could see the circumference of my own eye.
people doe looks
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.
perfect might facts
Were it not for this [dissatisfaction], the perfect painting might be painted, on the completion of which the painter could retire. It is this great insufficiency that drives him on. The process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than it is in the picture. The process is in fact habit-forming.
people wish looks
I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.
independent emotional want
I don't want any colour to be noticeable... I don't want it to operate in the modernist sense as colour, something independent... Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.