Sinopsis
Drawing into Painting reveals Lucian Freud’s lifelong focus on the human face and form, tracing the intimate dialogue between his sketches and paintings from the 1930s to the early 21st century.
Lucian Freud (1922–2011) is celebrated as one of the great figurative realist artists of the twentieth century, who devoted his artistic life to portraiture. Famously stating that ‘everything is a portrait’, he created intensely observed portraits of animals and plants, as well as his family members and those in his social circle and daily life.
Drawing into Painting explores how drawing remained central to Freud’s artistic practice throughout his life. From quick sketches to finished works in charcoal, pastel, and etching, his drawings offer a rare window into his process, revealing shifts in style, experimentation, and his evolving way of seeing. Spanning from his childhood to his final years, the book traces the unconventional path from his drawing practice to his painting, and back again.
Alongside a selection of key paintings by Freud and others, the book includes conversations with David Dawson, Freud’s close friend and assistant, and Bella Freud, the artist’s daughter. Insightful essays by writer and curator Catherine Lampert, British Museum drawings curator Isabel Seligman, and acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín further illuminates Freud’s world and legacy.
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Sarah Howgate is Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her previous exhibitions and publications include Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting (2025), David Hockney: Drawing from Life (2020), Tacita Dean: Landscape, Portrait, Still Life (2018), Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask (2017), Friendship Portraits: Chantal Joffe and Isabel Myerscough (2015), Lucian Freud Portraits (2012), and David Hockney Portraits (2006).
Tanya Bentley is Curator, Contemporary, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has contributed to recent publications including Francis Bacon: Human Presence (2024), Icons & Identities (2020), Tacita Dean: Landscape, Portrait, Still Life (2018) and Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask (2017). She is curator of a three-year rotating display (2023–2026) of materials from the Lucian Freud Archive held at the National Portrait Gallery.
David Dawson studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art and at the Royal College of Art. He met Lucian Freud soon after he had completed his Master’s degree, and began to work as his studio assistant. In 2000, he began photographing daily life in Freud’s studio, documenting the progress of Freud’s work and recording the artist with his sitters. Dawson worked with Freud until the artist’s death in 2011, during which time he was himself a sitter for Freud on numerous occasions. He is a co-editor of the Phaidon publication Lucian Freud and of Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud 1939–1954, both released in 2022.
Bella Freud, former sitter for her late father Lucian Freud, is a lauded designer. Establishing her namesake label in 1990, she has moved between the mediums of clothing design, interior design, perfume making, filmmaking and publishing. She has shot three films directed by the actor John Malkovich; printed a magazine entitled Memo with the late Anita Pallenberg; and designed limited-edition knitwear with singer-songwriter Nick Cave. Her own clothing designs have garnered a cult following amongst the likes of Kate Moss, Tilda Swinton, Juliette Lewis, Zadie Smith, Sienna Miller, Gabrielle Union, Olivia Wilde and Rebecca Hall. She is also the creator and presenter of the podcast Fashion Neurosis.
Catherine Lampert is an independent art historian and curator. She worked at the Hayward Gallery until 1998 and was Director of the Whitechapel Gallery from 1988 to 2001. She has authored and contributed to many books, including John Walker (Thames & Hudson, 2025), Peter Doig (Courtauld, 2023) and Hurvin Anderson (Rizzoli, 2022); and was co-author, with Toby Treves, of the 1200-page Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings (Modern Art Press, 2025). A sitter for Frank Auerbach from 1978 until the artist’s death in 2024, Lampert was most recently curator of the exhibition Frank Auerbach at Galerie Michael Werner, Berlin (2025).
Isabel Seligman is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at the British Museum and was lead curator of the exhibition Hew Locke: what have we here? (2024). Other recent exhibitions and publications include Drawing Attention: Emerging British Artists (British Museum, 2022), Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to Now (Thames and Hudson, 2019), Lines of Thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to Now (Thames and Hudson, 2016), and contributions to David Hockney: Drawing from Life (National Portrait Gallery, 2020) and The American Dream: Pop to the Present (Thames and Hudson, 2017).
Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of several novels, including The Master (Picador, 2004), Brooklyn (Viking, 2009), The Magician (Viking, 2021) and Long Island (Picador, 2024), and two collections of stories. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and his work has been translated into over 30 languages. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Tóibín was the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022–4.
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