Lucian Freud is the grandson of Sigmund
Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis. Born in Berlin on 8
December 1922, he moved to Britain in 1933 with his parents
after Hitler came to power in Germany. His father, Ernst, was an
architect; his mother the daughter of a grain merchant. Freud
became a British national in 1939. He started working as a
full-time artist after being invalied out of the merchant navy
in 1942, having served only three months.
Today his impasto portraits and nudes make
many regard him as the greatest figurative painter of our time.
Freud prefers to not use professional models, to rather have
friends and acquaintances pose for him, someone who really wants
to be there rather than someone he's paying. "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."
In 1938/39 Freud studied at the Central School of Arts in London; from 1939 to 1942 at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Debham run by Cedric Morris; in 1942/43 at Goldsmiths' College, London (part-time). In 1946/47 he painted in Paris and Greece. Freud had work published in Horizon magazine in 1939 and 1943. In 1944 his paintings were hung at the Lefevre Gallery.
- Source: about.com |