Girl with a Kitten, 1947

Lucien Freud was a German born painter, who grew up in England. He is highly regarded as one of the most important painters of portraits in the 20th century. His paintings reflect his reputation for being a very private man, as his subject matter primarily includes his family and friends. Freud is known to have painted using live models, and requiring very long and difficult sitting times with them. What resulted from the modeling sessions are paintings which have been described as somber, psychological interpretations of his relationships with his models. Lucien Freud was Sigmund Freud’s grandson. It is thought that Lucien’s paintings display an intensity derived from the comprehension Lucien gained of his subject’s physical and mental conditions during hours of modeling sessions. He required hundreds of hours to complete a nude painting, beginning with a charcoal drawing, adding paint to a small area, painting an initial version of the model’s head, and then returning to it after a lengthy time of interaction with the model. Lucien’s early works are influenced by German Expressionism and Surrealism. His portraits often depict his subjects in unusual settings, though retain the realism of figurative style even though abstract painting was extremely popular during the years he was working as an artist. Freuds work is admired for the wide range of flesh tones he created, using accumulated layers of thick impasto paint to focus on the textures of flesh and its colors. He focused on painted partial or full nudes for his mature works; such as Girl with a White Dog (1951-52). He referred to his work as autobiographical; painted purely about the places, people and things he cared about most. (Artist website)