Lucian Freud - How Goes It?

Cautionary and exemplary, Lucian Freud became notorious then famous as a painter who brought portraiture back into the picture as prime subject and concern.  William Feaver's biography The Lives of Lucien Freud, the second volume of which is to be published next autumn, is very much a portrait of the artist based on countless conversations with him over the years. Frank Auerbach has said of it: 'Lucian Freud was unique; unique in intensity, in affection, in interest and in fun. This brilliant and compendious biography has the same qualities.'

William Feaver, for many years the art critic for The Observer, is also a painter and has been the curator of exhibitions ranging from George Cruikshank at the V&A to the Tate retrospectives of Michael Andrews and Lucian Freud as well as Constable: Selection by Lucien Freud at The Grand Palais, Paris and When We Were Young, an exhibition of children’s book illustration in Vienna. His book Pitmen Painters was adapted by Lee Hall for an award-winning play that ran at The National Theatre in 2009. His book, Frank Auerbach, was published in 2009 and his most recent book The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth 1922-1968 published in September 2019, was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2019.