3 replies to this topic

[dirac]

First Twombly, now Freud. I hope there isn't a number three on the way. At least both men lived long lives.

Quote

Mr. Freud was a bohemian of the old school. He set up his studios in squalid neighborhoods, developed a Byronic reputation as a rake and gambled recklessly (“Debt stimulates me,” he once said). In 1948, he married Kitty Garman, the daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein, whom he depicted in several portraits, notably “Girl With Roses,” “Girl With a Kitten” (1947) and “Girl With a White Dog” (1950-51). That marriage ended in divorce, as did his second marriage, to Lady Caroline Blackwood. He is survived by many children from his first marriage and from a series of romantic relationships.

I particularly like Freud's portraits of Blackwood. Robert Lowell was clutching one when he died.

[Quiggin]

dirac:

Quote

I particularly like Freud's portraits of Blackwood. Robert Lowell was clutching one when he died.

From the fascinating bio Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood by Nancy Schoenberger:

Quote

Caroline described Lucian as Byronic, a man whose very presence transformed daily life into something magical. His disturbing blue-green, close set eyes gave him an expression of marked intensity. He didn’t have to assert his personality to be noticed; he had the fine, sharp features of a bird of prey. Caroline’s girlhood friend Anne Dunn, who had had an affair with the painter before his marriage to Caroline, believed that “a lot of men and women were in love with Lucian. They would then fall in love with Lucian’s girls if they couldn’t be with Lucian, as sort of the next best thing...

Caroline later said: He had a reputation in Soho – people thought he was going to be a great artist. But he wasn’t much liked by the galleries. Everyone thought his work was too ugly, even the work we now think of as really pretty. They thought the portraits were hideous. Everyone said, “Oh, the nightmare would to be painted by Lucian, because he makes everyone so ravaged.”

John Deakin's British Vogue portait of Lucian Freud (the famous Francis Bacon photo below left):

26 August 1952

Quote

Deakin wrote of this portrait of Freud, “When I said that only the bad ones grumbled at my portraits, I should have excepted Lucian Freud, whose work I admire so much. But perhaps his grumbles were just part of his act; he is such a strange fox-like person.” Deakin sat for Freud for the painting “John Deakin 1963/4”

[leonid]

dirac, on 21 July 2011 - 04:29 PM, said:

First Twombly, now Freud. I hope there isn't a number three on the way. At least both men lived long lives.

Quote

Mr. Freud was a bohemian of the old school. He set up his studios in squalid neighborhoods, developed a Byronic reputation as a rake and gambled recklessly (“Debt stimulates me,” he once said). In 1948, he married Kitty Garman, the daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein, whom he depicted in several portraits, notably “Girl With Roses,” “Girl With a Kitten” (1947) and “Girl With a White Dog” (1950-51). That marriage ended in divorce, as did his second marriage, to Lady Caroline Blackwood. He is survived by many children from his first marriage and from a series of romantic relationships.

I particularly like Freud's portraits of Blackwood. Robert Lowell was clutching one when he died.

Thank you for posting.

For me Lucien Freud was the most significant post war portrait artist in Britain and his status as such reaches beyond our shores.

I remember seeing him walking through Soho and I thought,"My God", his own face appears to be produced in the manner of one of his own portraits with its deep lines and various hues.

http://www.telegraph...n-Freud-OM.html

http://www.guardian....uary?intcmp=239

http://painting.abou...n_freud/1920/3/

[dirac]

Thanks to both of you for all those links. The Deakin gallery is marvelous, Quiggin.

Apparently there were fifteen recognized children. There’s something Gordon Craigish about him, although he was a fulfilled artist and Craig was not.