Painting of the Month (72) June 2017: Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, so it is perhaps not surprising that he started his painting career working as a surrealist but soon switched to a kind of expressionist realism. He was a very private man and painted only those close to him, portraits of his friends and family and in a major way, of himself. In fact he was obsessed about self-portraiture.

Self Portrait, Lucian Freud, 1985

He has provided a comprehensive, unflattering history over many decades. And not only of himself; he managed to make the model, Kate Moss, appear ugly! He is known for "unflinching observations of anatomy and psychology". Once established his style did not really change much over six decades. It seems to have been inevitable that the long, intense sessions with his sitters have led to comparison with the way that his grandfather, Sigmund, worked.
Although Freud eschewed the avant-garde of his contemporaries, such as David Hockney, he was strikingly unusual in his detailed depiction of genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics in general. His explicit  illustrations showed the same level of detail that a botanical painter of flowers might show. 
He is regarded as one of the leading self-portraitists of the twentieth century. He did not -exhibit the range of earlier self-portraitists such as Rembrandt or Van Gogh but he revealed psychological insights into all of his subjects in a new way.

Freud with Kate Moss and his painting of her

I'm listening to Loudain Wainwright III, a much underrated singer-songwriter whose searing honesty sometimes makes me wince when I listen to his songs. Here is a song about his time living in London: Primrose Hill. Have a listen.