Unflinching Lucian Freud
The Self Portraits at the Royal Academy of Art
Lucian Freud: The Self Portraits will be the first exhibition to focus on the celebrated artist’s dark visceral side through his self portraits. They are at once disturbing and mesmerizing. The portraits were executed over almost seven decades on canvas and paper with 50 works that trace Freud’s artistic development.
Freud’s wide ranging and unexpected exploration of the self portrait is haunting and wonderful. His different uses of brushwork and drawing techniques and the very different results from the early linear years to his later bold, breathtaking brushwork is a marvel.
Lucian Freud was asked if he was a good model for himself to which he answered, “No, I don’t accept the information that I get when I look at myself and that’s where the trouble starts.” The work permits the viewer a look at the underworld of self. Lucian Freud’s hand was directed as if by dreams or nightmares and the results are haunting and startling brave.
