Lucian Freud, 1922-2011

Regarded as one of the greatest modern figurative painters, Lucian Freud's career was defined largely by his penetratingly raw, nude portraits, painted with thick brushstrokes and an almost putridly warm palette of yellows and browns. Discomforting at times to peer into, his human subjects reveal exhaustion, vulnerability, and even distress. By contrast - and one of the things I have always been drawn to in his work - his depictions of his dogs, Pluto and Eli (whippets, who appeared regularly in his paintings and prints) have an exceptionally sensitive, grounded quality to them - not that they are any less exposed or gritty than the humans they sit with, but their honesty is of a different brand. They're achingly beautiful. Perhaps Lucian inherited a special empathy for canines from his grandfather, the iconic psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The elder Freud had a soft spot for Chows and believed strongly that dogs possess a keen sense for determining character - an astute ability for stripping away exterior defenses and projections to reveal a deeper, more vulnerable truth... 

The exceptional Lucian Freud passed away yesterday at 88, in his home in London. 

Above: Double Portrait, 1985-1986 (oil); Below. clockwise:
Eli and David, 2005 (oil), Pluto, 1989 (etching); Eli, 2002 (etching).