Λάδι και χαρακτικό της μητέρας του καλλιτέχνη- Lucian Freud

The Painter's Mother by Lucian Freud

Highlights from the Lucian Freud exhibition at MoMA in New York.

By Marion Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide

Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings, Exhibition at MoMA 16 December 2007 to 10 March 2008

© 2007 Lucian Freud

Painting: The Painter's Mother III 1972
Oil on canvas. 12 3/4 x 9 1/4" (32.4x23.5cm).
Private collection.
Photo: © Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library © 2007 Lucian Freud

Etching: The Painter's Mother (final version) 1982
Etching Plate: 7 x 6" (17.8x15.2cm) Sheet: 10 3/4 x 8 1/4" (27.3x21cm)
Publisher: James Kirkman, London, and Anthony d'Offay, London. Issued with 25 copies of the deluxe edition of Lawrence Gowing's book Lucian Freud (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982). Printer: Terry Wilson at Palm Tree Studios, London. Edition: 25.
Tate. Purchased 1982.
Photo: © 2007 Tate, London © 2007 Lucian Freud.

Freud's models are himself, his family members and friends who, by agreeing to pose, commit to months of doing so as Freud is known as a slow worker. His finished works show evidence of revision and reworking, at times thick layers of encrusted paint. He prefers not to use professional models who have develop a defense against being naked in front of strangers.

Asked by arts journalist Sebastian Smee about the pictures he did of his mother after she became depressed following the death of his father, Freud said: "I started painting her because she'd lost interest in everything, including me. Before then, I always avoided her because she was so intuitive that I felt my privacy was rather threatened by her." Freud said she never commented on his paintings though she "would have a quick look when she left"¹.

"For hours daily he painted her, creating works that rival those of Whistler and Rembrandt. Sleepless, tear-filled nights and lost hope are visible in her slack, white flesh. He observed her grief intimately..."²

It's hard to look at his portrait of his mother without thinking they have, by comparison to his other portraits, a degree of tenderness in them. Tender for Lucian Freud, that is.

^{References:
1.} Freud at Work, p31-32
2. "A Master of Elegy" by Tara Pepper, Newsweek, 8 July 2002)