Lucian Freud
Biography
Born in Berlin in 1922, Lucian Freud moved to England with his family in 1933. Along with his friend Francis Bacon, he rose to prominence in London in the 1950’s and has lived and worked in the city ever since. Freud is regarded as one of the leading figurative artists working today.
Freud created his first etchings in Paris in 1946. The marks and techniques he employs during the etching process exhibit the natural progression of his work as a draughtsman. In both painting and printmaking the influence of his works in one medium on the other can be seen, and his subjects are those close and familiar to him, though often anonymous to the viewer. In the majority of Freud's works everything unnecessary is stripped away, leaving little, if any, color and a minimal background. Unsettling and unyielding, they contain a remarkable honesty and an awkwardness that adds to the nervous nature of the images.
Freud's work is a part of many major international collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, Birmingham, England; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland; Städelisches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, Germany; Tate Modern, London, England; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.