Lucian Freud Portraits - Tapa dura

'Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it's only a chair.' Portraits were central to the work of Lucian Freud. Working only from life, the artist claimed 'I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me.' Lucian Freud Portraits surveys his portraits and figure paintings from across his long career. Drawing together the finest portraits from public and private collections around the world, the book explores Freud's stylistic development and technical virtuosity. A series of previously unpublished interviews conducted by Michael Auping between May 2009 and January 2011 reveal the artist's thoughts on the complex relationship between artist and sitter, the particular challenges of painting nudes and self-portraits, and his views on other painters he admired. Freud's psychological portraits are often imbued with a mood of alienation. A private man, the artist's close relationship with his sitters was played out behind the closed door of the studio. Frequently there is the sense of an emotionally charged drama unfolding, but his subjects remain elusive. Sitters represented in the book include family members, particularly his mother, Lucie, and artists such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and David Hockney. In the early 1990s Freud produced a series of monumental paintings of the performance artist Leigh Bowery and Bowery's friend Sue Tilley, the 'benefits supervisor', examples of which are reproduced in this book. Authoritative survey of more than 130 works, accompanying the first major exhibition focussed on seven decades of Freud's portraits. Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London (9 February-27 May 2012) and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2 July-28 October 2012). Includes new, illuminating interviews with Freud by Michael Auping. Contribution by John Richardson (friend of Freud and biographer of Picasso). Features an illustrated chronology of Freud's life. Essay and interviews with Lucian Freud by Michael Auping With a contribution by John Richardson This book accompanies the National Portrait Gallery's major Spring 2012 exhibition on Lucian Freud Portraits and the subsequent tour to Fort Worth, Texas in July 2012

Lucian Freud was een van de grootste realistische schilders ter wereld. Dit nieuwe, gezaghebbende overzicht van Freuds portretten en modelschilderijen verkent zijn werk gedurende zeven decennia, van de vroege jaren 1940 tot zijn dood in 2011. De mooiste portretten uit openbare en particuliere collecties van over de hele wereld komen samen in dit boek.

'Lucian Freud: Portraits' verkent de stilistische ontwikkeling en de technische virtuositeit van Freud. Een reeks van niet eerder gepubliceerde interviews uitgevoerd door Michael Auping tussen mei 2009 en januari 2011 onthullen de gedachten van de kunstenaar over de complexe relatie tussen kunstenaar en model, de bijzondere uitdagingen van het schilderen van naaktmodellen zelfportretten, en zijn opvattingen over andere schilders die hij bewonderde. Het boek bevat meer dan 130 schilderijen, tekeningen en etsen geselecteerd in nauwe samenwerking met de kunstenaar.

- Sarah Howgate is conservator van Hedendaagse Portraits in de National Portrait Gallery, Londen.
- Michael Auping is Chief conservator van het Museum voor Moderne Kunst in Fort Worth.
- John Richardson, een vriend van Lucian Freud en auteur van een 'A Life of Picasso'