SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATORSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019'This exceptional book is far from standard biography ... A compendium of high-grade gossip about everyone from Princess Margaret to the Krays, a tour of the immediate post-war art world, a snapshot of grimy London and a narrative of Freud's career and rackety life and loves ... Leaves the reader itchy for volume two' SUNDAY TIMES, ART BOOK OF THE YEAR'Brilliant ... Freud would have approved' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Sparkling' SUNDAY TIMES 'Superlative ... packed with stories' GUARDIAN'Brilliant and compendious ... It does justice to Lucian' FRANK AUERBACH'A tremendous read. Anyone interested in British art needs it' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMANThough ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver - about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves. The result is this a unique, electrifying biography, shot through with Freud's own words.In Youth, the first of two volumes, Feaver conjures Freud's early childhood: Sigmund Freud's grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 before being dropped into successive English public schools. Following Freud through art school, his time in the Navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho - consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret - Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man's coming of age.An account of a century told through one of its most important artists, The Lives of Lucian Freud is a landmark in the story its subject and in the art of biography itself.
SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATOR SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 'This exceptional book is far from standard biography ... A compendium of high-grade gossip about everyone from Princess Margaret to the Krays, a tour of the immediate post-war art world, a snapshot of grimy London and a narrative of Freud's career and rackety life and loves ... Leaves the reader itchy for volume two' SUNDAY TIMES, ART BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Brilliant ... Freud would have approved' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Sparkling' SUNDAY TIMES 'Superlative ... packed with stories' GUARDIAN 'Brilliant and compendious ... It does justice to Lucian' FRANK AUERBACH 'A tremendous read. Anyone interested in British art needs it' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver – about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves. The result is this a unique, electrifying biography, shot through with Freud's own words. In Youth, the first of two volumes, Feaver conjures Freud's early childhood: Sigmund Freud's grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 before being dropped into successive English public schools. Following Freud through art school, his time in the Navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho – consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret – Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man's coming of age. An account of a century told through one of its most important artists, The Lives of Lucian Freud is a landmark in the story its subject and in the art of biography itself.
The first biography of the epic life of one of the most important, enigmatic and private artists of the 20th century. Drawn from almost 40 years of conversations with the artist, letters and papers, it is a major work written by a well-known British art critic. Lucian Freud (1922-2011) is one of the most influential figurative painters of the 20th century. His paintings are in every major museum and many private collections here and abroad. William Feaver's daily calls from 1973 until Freud died in 2011, as well as interviews with family and friends were crucial sources for this book. Freud had ferocious energy, worked day and night but his circle was broad including not just other well-known artists but writers, bluebloods, royals in England and Europe, drag queens, fashion models gamblers, bookies and gangsters like the Kray twins. Fierce, rebellious, charismatic, extremely guarded about his life, he was witty, mischievous and a womanizer. This brilliantly researched book begins with the Freuds' life in Berlin, the rise of Hitler and the family's escape to London in 1933 when Lucian was 10. Sigmund Freud was his grandfather and Ernst, his father was an architect. In London in his twenties, his first solo show was in 1944 at the Lefevre Gallery. Around this time, Stephen Spender introduced him to Virginia Woolf; at night he was taking Pauline Tennant to the Gargoyle Club, owned by her father and frequented by Dylan Thomas; he was also meeting Sonia Orwell, Cecil Beaton, Auden, Patrick Leigh-Fermor and the Aly Khan, and his muse was a married femme fatale, 13 years older, Lorna Wishart. But it was Francis Bacon who would become his most important influence and the painters Frank Auerbach and David Hockney, close friends. This is an extremely intimate, lively and rich portrait of the artist, full of gossip and stories recounted by Freud to Feaver about people, encounters, and work. Freud's art was his life—"my work is purely autobiographical"—and he usually painted only family, friends, lovers, children, though there were exceptions like the famous small portrait of the Queen. With his later portraits, the subjects were often nude, names were never given and sittings could take up to 16 months, each session lasting five hours but subjects were rarely bored as Freud was a great raconteur and mimic. This book is a major achievement, a tour de force that reveals the details of the life and innermost thoughts of the greatest portrait painter of our time. Volume I has 41 black and white integrated images, and 2 eight-page color inserts.
The first biography of the epic life of one of the most important, enigmatic and private artists of the 20th century. Drawn from almost 40 years of conversations with the artist, letters and papers, it is a major work written by a well-known British art critic. Lucian Freud (1922-2011) is one of the most influential figurative painters of the 20th century. His paintings are in every major museum and many private collections here and abroad. William Feaver's daily calls from 1973 until Freud died in 2011, as well as interviews with family and friends were crucial sources for this book. Freud had ferocious energy, worked day and night but his circle was broad including not just other well-known artists but writers, bluebloods, royals in England and Europe, drag queens, fashion models gamblers, bookies and gangsters like the Kray twins. Fierce, rebellious, charismatic, extremely guarded about his life, he was witty, mischievous and a womanizer. This brilliantly researched book begins with the Freuds' life in Berlin, the rise of Hitler and the family's escape to London in 1933 when Lucian was 10. Sigmund Freud was his grandfather and Ernst, his father was an architect. In London in his twenties, his first solo show was in 1944 at the Lefevre Gallery. Around this time, Stephen Spender introduced him to Virginia Woolf; at night he was taking Pauline Tennant to the Gargoyle Club, owned by her father and frequented by Dylan Thomas; he was also meeting Sonia Orwell, Cecil Beaton, Auden, Patrick Leigh-Fermor and the Aly Khan, and his muse was a married femme fatale, 13 years older, Lorna Wishart. But it was Francis Bacon who would become his most important influence and the painters Frank Auerbach and David Hockney, close friends. This is an extremely intimate, lively and rich portrait of the artist, full of gossip and stories recounted by Freud to Feaver about people, encounters, and work. Freud's art was his life—"my work is purely autobiographical"—and he usually painted only family, friends, lovers, children, though there were exceptions like the famous small portrait of the Queen. With his later portraits, the subjects were often nude, names were never given and sittings could take up to 16 months, each session lasting five hours but subjects were rarely bored as Freud was a great raconteur and mimic. This book is a major achievement, a tour de force that reveals the details of the life and innermost thoughts of the greatest portrait painter of our time. Volume I has 41 black and white integrated images, and 2 eight-page color inserts.
With 1,200 works, including 250 paintings created by the artist since the previous edition, this newly expanded book on this much admired and very influential British painter is now available in an accessibly priced edition. This is the most comprehensive monograph to date on Frank Auerbach (1931–), one of the preeminent artists of our age, widely admired for his vivid, impulsive depictions of the world around him. Often compared to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in terms of the revolutionary and powerful nature of his work, Auerbach crafts depictions of people and the urban landscapes near his London studio that make him one of the greatest painters alive today. Spanning the length of his career from the 1950s to the present, this expanded edition includes 250 additional works to bring it up to date. In the back of the book there is a small-scale chronological sequencing of full-color reproductions, which depicts nearly every painting made by the artist, from his student years up until this publication. At age 90, he looks back over his life and his work, rich with breakthroughs in painting and masterful individuality. Praise for earlier edition: “The constant painter: a rare interview with Frank Auerbach... A weighty monograph filled with photographs of his life’s work, written by William Feaver, is published [and] underscore[s] his position as a Grand Old Man of British Painting.” —London Evening Standard “This definitive account of Auerbach’s work and life includes excellent large-scale reproductions of 200 paintings and an illustrated catalogue of some 1,000 more, lively, pertinent interpretations from Feaver, the artist’s long-term friend, critical supporter and model, and engaging interviews and photographs.” —The Financial Times
Here is modern painting from its roots in the work of Cezanne, through Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism and Dada in the early decades of the twentieth century and on to Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s. The works of Frank Stella, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, amongst many others, are discussed and analysed by Caroline Tisdall and William Feaver in a lively final chapter that brings us up to the present times and points to exciting new developments. An indispensible reference work that bears witness to the genius of Herbert Read - artist, poet and art historian." - back cover.
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