At the time of this retrospective, Lucian Freud is widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest living realist painters, whose virtuosic portraits and nudes define a historic era of figurative art. Lucian Freud assembles over one hundred and fifteen paintings, drawings, and etchings from across the artist’s sixty-year career, including new and never before exhibited work.
The grandson of Sigmund Freud, Lucian Freud was celebrated for the tortured expressionism of his paintings, or his ability to render complex psychological portraits through skin and flesh alone. Included in the retrospective are paintings of wives, family, and friends, which span Freud’s entire career; images of the notorious performance artist Leigh Bowery from the early 1990s; relatively recent self-portraits dating to the 1990s and early 2000s; and, notably, a new, 2002 painting of David Hockney.
Lucian Freud traveled from Tate Britain to the Fundació la Caixa, Barcelona, and MOCA, the only US venue for the show.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
Lucian Freud is organized by William Feaver, Tate Britain, London, and adapted by Rebecca Morse, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.