Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits

The exhibition catalogue of Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits, which opens at the RA in October 2019. Expert authors – including those who knew and worked with Freud – reveal an approach to the genre that is both unexpected and intriguing.

This 152-page hardback catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits at the Royal Academy of Arts, 27 October 2019 to 26 January 2020.

The first to focus on Freud’s self-portraits, the book provides a fascinating insight into the psyche of this enigmatic yet extremely private artist. Expert authors David Dawson, Joseph Leo Koerner, Jasper Sharp and Sebastian Smee reflect on Freud’s place within the history of self-portraiture and the role self-portraits play within his wider oeuvre.

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In 1964 Lucian Freud set his students at the Norwich College of Art an assignment: to paint naked self-portraits and to make them 'revealing, telling, believable... really shameless'. It was advice that the artist was often to follow himself. Visceral, unflinching and often nude, Freud's self-portraits give us an insight into the development of his style as a painter. The works provide the viewer with a constant reminder of the artist's overwhelming presence, whether he is confronting the viewer directly or only present as a shadow or in a reflection.

Essays by leading authorities - including those who knew him well - explore Freud's life and work, and analyse the importance of self-portraiture in his practice and the intensity that he maintained when studying his own.

Accompanies an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (27 October 2019 to 26 January 2020) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (22 February to 25 May 2020). Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

About the Authors:

David Dawson is a painter and photographer, and Freud's former studio assistant. Joseph Leo Koerner is the Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, Harvard University. Jasper Sharp is Adjunct Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee is author of The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals and Breakthroughs in Modern Art (2016).