Lucian Freud | MoMA

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Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War. His early career as a painter was influenced by surrealism, but by the early 1950s his often stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism. Freud was an intensely private and guarded man, and his paintings, completed over a 60-year career, are mostly of friends and family. They are generally sombre and thickly impastoed, often set in unsettling interiors and urban landscapes. The works are noted for their psychological penetration and often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model. Freud worked from life studies, and was known for asking for extended and punishing sittings from his models.
Wikidata
Q154594
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Getty record
Introduction
Grandchild of Sigmund Freud and child of Ernst Freud. A 1987 exhibition at the Hirshorn raised his stature in the United States. In 1993 the the Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a retrospective of his work.
Nationalities
British, English, German
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Pen Draftsman, Etcher, Copyist, Graphic Artist, Illustrator, Portraitist, Lecturer, Painter, Pastelist, Pastellist
Names
Lucian Freud, Lusyan Froid
Ulan
500116243
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Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

21 works online

Exhibitions

View all 27 exhibitions

Publications

  • Lincoln Kirstein's Modern Samantha Friedman and Jodi Hauptman, 2019 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 208 pages
  • Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings Starr Figura, 2007 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 144 pages
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