Lucian Freud Portraits - An Undressed State of Rawness & Vulnerability

I’ve always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It’s people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.’

-Lucian Freud

Freud, a grandson of the psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud, was born in Berlin in 1922 and fled to Britain with his Jewish family in 1933, when he was 10. Lucian Freud is a master of figurative painting and related subjects’ characters through stark portraiture. His work drew comparisons with equally shocking works by Courbet, Titian and Picasso, the feelings exposed registering as both brash and profound. In 1987, the critic Robert Hughes nominated Freud as the greatest living realist painter.

Here are a few of his portraits that are especially deep, intuitive and profound.
The portraits of Freud don’t necessarily come across as pretty. They are fleshy, raw and seem to capture an essence of humanity in an undressed state of vulnerability, and sometimes ugliness. With the eye of the artist, he definitely saw beneath the exterior.

Portrait of Christian Berard Completion Date: 1948 — Portrait of Christian Berard
Completion Date: 1948

John Minton Completion Date: 1952 — John Minton
Completion Date: 1952

Reflection (Self-portrait), 1985 Private Collection, Ireland © The Lucian Freud Archive. Photo: Courtesy Lucian Freud Archive — Reflection (Self-portrait), 1985
Private Collection, Ireland © The Lucian Freud Archive.
Photo: Courtesy Lucian Freud Archive

Boy on a Sofa fetched £1.49m in 2011, a record price for a work on paper by Freud.

The Painter's Mother Resting I - Lucian Freud, 1975-1976 — The Painter’s Mother Resting I – Lucian Freud, 1975-1976

Woman in a White Shirt - Lucian Freud, 1956-1957 — Woman in a White Shirt – Lucian Freud, 1956-1957

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (also known as Big Sue) - Lucian Freud, 1995 — Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (also known as Big Sue) – Lucian Freud, 1995

Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, a life-sized nude portrait of Ms Tilley, set the world record for the highest price paid at auction for a work of art by a living artist when it sold for $33.6 million in 2008 at Christie’s in New York. – a world record for a work by a living artist. More about the painting here.

Francis Bacon – The Three Studies of Lucian Freud

Francis Bacon was a close friend and admirer of Lucian. They met in the 1940s and when they weren’t painting, they spent much time drinking, gambling and arguing. Inspired by Lucian, Francis painted the Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which was his most famous painting. The painting fetched £89m in 2013. A profitable ode to friendship.