Lucian Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis. Lucian was born December 8, 1922 in Berlin and died July 20, 2011 in London. In 1933 Freud and his parents moved to Britain after Hitler came into power in Germany. Lucian's father was an architect and his mother was a grain merchant. Freud became a British national in 1939. After being invalided out of the merchant navy in 1942 after serving only three months Lucian began working as a full time artist. Freud's impasto Portraits and nudes make many people regard him as one of the greatest figurative painters of our time. Rather than paying people to pose for him portraits, Freud preferred to use family and friends as models, people who actually wanted to be there, rather than painting people who only wanted to be there for the money. Freud stated, "I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness." In 1938/39 Freud studied at the Central School of Art in London. From 1939 to 1942 he studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Debham, and in 1942-1943 he studied at Goldsmith's College in London on a part time basis. In 1946/47 Freud painted in Paris and Greece. Lucian had work published in Horizon magazine in 1939 and again in 1943, and in 1944 he had work hung in the Lefevre Gallery. Freud had a studio that he worked out of for 30 years in Paddington London before he moved to one in Holland Park. He had a gallery exhibit at the Tate Gallery in 2002 that was a sell out.
Early in his career Lucian Freud experimented with surrealism, and he was said to have a brief "fling" with neo-Romanticism. Since the 1950's his work has typically been labeled as Realism. The bulk of is work are female nudes, along with some cityscape's, plant studies, and interiors. His work is distinguished by his muted palette and visible brushstrokes.
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