Lucien Freud

Date

1985

Description

Creator of the image: Lucien Freud
Date of the image creation: 1985
Medium of the image: Oil on canvas
Person depicted: Lucien Freud

Lucien Freud (1922–2011), the grandson of the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, was born in Berlin, before his family fled to Britain after the Nazi’s took power. He went on to become a celebrated artist, best known for his portraiture and figure paintings. His work typically uses thick brush strokes to render the flesh of his subjects. In 2008, one of his portraits sold for an obscene $33 million dollars, the world-record auction-price for a living artist. He is rumoured to have fathered as many as forty children, which, while likely an exaggeration, nevertheless suggests something of his character — or at least his attitude towards contraceptives.

In this self-portrait, ‘Reflection’, painted in 1985, Freud turned his psychological gaze upon himself. His head and shoulders are depicted, shirtless and lit from above, which brings out the heavy wrinkles in his 63-year-old face. The tone and texture of the folds of flesh on his face are remarkable, with a great variability of colours that nevertheless retains overall coherence. The figure in the portrait does not return the painter’s gaze, but rather casts his eyes slightly to his left in an ambiguous evasion.

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