Lucian
Freud Centre Pompidou Paris
May 2008, Freud became the
living artist most expensive in the world, above Jeff Koons. Its
gigantic naked Sue Tilley, known as "Big Sue", stretched at full
length, crushed the flesh on a sofa, has been sold for 33 million
dollars. Lucian Freud (born 1922) is the younger son
of Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis. He left Germany in 1934
with his parents. He was a close friend of Francis Bacon. He painted
the Queen of England, which has greatly contributed to enhance its
reputation. Lucian Freud, then, 87 years, the expression of
"the British eccentricity, was in Paris last Sunday. An event in
relation to his age, but most of its habits. The man, who never ceased
to paint like nothing better than staying at home or in his studio. He
moves for an exceptionnal event : the impressive exhibition organized
by the Pompidou Center and meet some fifty masterpieces large format,
dating from the 1970s to today, we are not near forget! The
art of Lucian Freud in Paris in 2010, just as the great
retrospective of 1987, will remain a sensory experience unique, as his
painting pulsates as "an organic and alive" and poses a glance
uncompromising on his contemporaries. Considered one of the last great
realistic, Freud had a langage in permanent evolution. He has
revisited in his way, art nudes and portraits. Most are new pictures
hanging in Paris. Four rooms recreate the strongest of Freud:
interiors, exteriors, self-portraits, the great naked. The
artist definitely singular continues to use traditional methods like
the bridge, while working exclusively on live models, he knows well. He
only paints in his studio. And when it comes to landscapes, "these are
the trees and the view he sees from his window," said Cecile Debray,
exhibition curator, originally from the meeting of major paintings.
Almost all come from private collections, with few exceptions. "The
National Museum of Modern Art has virtually no work of Freud, who
quickly became too expensive for the public finances. It is also the
case of MoMA in New York." Freud, rare artist at all levels!
The man painted little. Three to five pictures a year. It is estimated
that his work does count for much more from 300 to 400 numbers. "His
observation time is too long intensely active," says Cecile Debray.
When he feels a certain comfort, he broke to go to something else.
"Nudity is very raw at home. The huge demand. We can be forgotten that
he was a great artist in the 1940s. His paintings were very realistic
and licked. " Until the encounter with Francis Bacon, who will release
it somehow. He sat working with small brushes. It takes brushes, freed
of constraints, stands up against his easel, wipes his brush on the
walls of his studio. The matter becomes lumpy as the giddy flesh of his
characters. Beautiful or repulsive? It depends on taste. Freud also
divided. No consensus, he dares. In painting, like his daring life
filled with secrets. That of a man who once drove a car while playing
Russian roulette, as he tells himself.
Lucian
Freud. Pompidou Center, from March 10 to July 19. 01
44 78 12 33