Skip navigation
Tate Logo
Shop
Become a Member

Main menu

  • Art and artists
    • Our collection
      Artists
      Artworks
      Art by theme
      Explore
      Videos
      Podcasts
      Short articles
      In depth
      Art Terms
      Tate Research
      Student resources
      Make art
      Create like an artist
      Kids art activities
      Tate Draw game
  • What's on
  • Plan your visit

Main menu additional

  • Shop
  • Become a Member
Expand
  • Art and Artists
  • Artists
  • Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud

1922–2011

David and Eli 2003–4
© The Lucian Freud Archive / Bridgeman Images 2023
License this image

In Tate Britain

Modern and Contemporary British Art

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Rooms

4 artworks by Lucian Freud
View by Appointment

Biography

Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.

His early career as a painter was influenced by surrealism, but by the early 1950s his often stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism. Freud was an intensely private and guarded man, and his paintings, completed over a 60-year career, are mostly of friends and family. They are generally sombre and thickly impastoed, often set in unsettling interiors and urban landscapes. The works are noted for their psychological penetration and often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model. Freud worked from life studies, and was known for asking for extended and punishing sittings from his models.

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. Spotted a problem? Let us know.

Read full Wikipedia entry
School of London

Artworks

Left Right
  • Lucian Freud David and Eli

    2003–4
  • Lucian Freud Girl with a White Dog

    1951–1952
    On display at Tate Modern part of Capturing the Moment
  • Lucian Freud Francis Bacon

    1952
  • Lucian Freud Head of a Woman

    1982
  • Lucian Freud The Painter’s Mother

    1982
  • Lucian Freud Woman Sleeping

    1995
    View by appointment
  • Lucian Freud Woman with an Arm Tattoo

    1996
    View by appointment
  • Lucian Freud Self-Portrait: Reflection

    1996
See all 27

Artist as subject

  • Lucian Freud Self-Portrait: Reflection

    1996
  • Lucian Freud Man with a Thistle (Self-Portrait)

    1946
  • Sir Cedric Morris, Bt Lucian Freud

    1941
  • Helen Lessore Symposium I

    1974–77
  • R.B. Kitaj The Wedding

    1989–93
    On display at Tate Britain part of Modern and Contemporary British Art

Features

  • List

    Five Ways to Paint a Body

  • Exhibition Guide

    Lucian Freud: Real Lives

In the shop

Browse the shop
Close

Join in

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Sign up to emails

Sign up to emails

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tate’s privacy policy

About

  • About us
  • Our collection
  • Terms and copyright
  • Governance
  • Picture library
  • ARTIST ROOMS
  • Tate Kids

Support

  • Tate Collective
  • Members
  • Patrons
  • Donate
  • Corporate
  • My account
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact