Lucian Freud

Acquavella Contemporary Art, Inc., New York
Private Collection, United States

New York, Acquavella Contemporary Art, Lucian Freud recent work 1997 – 2000, April – May 2000, pl. 5, illustrated in color (unfinished state)
London, Tate Britain; Barcelona, Fundació "la Caixa"; Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Lucian Freud, June 2002 – May 2003, cat. no. 142, illustrated in color (London only)
Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, John Constable: le choix de Lucian Freud, October 2002 - January 2003, fig. 23, p.3, illustrated in color  

Sebastian Smee, Lucian Freud 1996 – 2005, London, 2005, pl. 51, illustrated in color

This painting is in excellent condition. Please refer to department for a detailed condition report. This canvas is framed in a wood frame with antiqued gold finish under Plexiglas.
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One of the most masterful portraitists of the 20^th century, Lucian Freud combines an uncanny ability to explore the totality of the human experience with a true comprehension of the physical properties of paint. His renderings of acquaintances, friends and family members display not only their external likeness but also an in-depth understanding of the nuances of their character.  His works are intimate explorations of his sitters, each brushstroke revealing new details of their inner and outer selves. The lady with down-cast eyes in Naked Portrait Standing has been caught in a moment of self-reflection. Eyes lowered and body bare, she has been stripped of the protections of the everyday world, and faces us without identity and without armor or protection.

In Naked Portrait Standing, Freud probes his subject both physically and emotionally. The curvatures of her belly and legs, as well as the shadows of her face are conveyed with the impasto brushstrokes which are the benchmark of his mature style. This thick, gestural application of paint was the result of the hog-haired brush, a tool Freud discovered in the 1950s whose springy bristles quickly replaced his fine sable brush and altered the flattened linear style that had characterized his early years. With this new instrument, every trace of the brushwork was now exposed; the entire history of the paint as well as a face could be read at a glance. Thus, the new brush was not merely a tool to depict corporeal details; it allowed Freud to portray the growth and changes of his sitters so that "a thousand secrets of the past (could) crawl into the sun."  (Exh. Cat., London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lucian Freud: Recent Work, 1994, p. 19)  Freud's palette is equally expressive and nuanced as red, pink, tan, white and yellow convey alike the florid blushes and pale passages of complexion, literally depicting the lifeblood beneath the skin.

Freud is known for the personal relationships he develops with his sitters. If they are not the close friends or family who typically pose for him, the artist requires that his subjects spend days or even weeks in his studio as he observes every contour of their body and the aura of their being. Beginning in the 1960s, Freud began to focus on the delicacies and complexities of the nude, the most classic of artistic subjects, brought forward to his own time. The subject of the nude is one so potent that it can be traced from ancient Mesopotamian fertility figures to the most avant-garde contemporary works. Freud was foremost among 20^th century artists who maintained figurative realism in their portrayal of the nude while simultaneously exploring more radical aesthetic techniques. We see this in Pierre Bonnard's loving depiction of the female nude in her bath, her naturalistic form flattened in foreshortened composition and dematerialized by the dappling sunlight. By the same token, the imposing women of both Matisse and Picasso bear a presence similar to that of the lady in Naked Portrait Standing, the mass of their forms similarly abstracted by interlocking planes yet at the same time maintaining an organic element.

The nude soon became the iconic subject for his oeuvre, as Freud recognized the revelatory power of the naked form to make manifest the inner individual.  As he has stated, "I want paint to work as flesh, I know my idea of portraiture came from dissatisfaction with portraits that resembled people. I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having to look at the sitter, being them. As far as I am concerned, the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as the flesh does."  (Exh. Cat., London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lucian Freud: Recent Work, 1994, p. 12) Using his brush with the fluency of a sculptor, Freud chisels out every muscular detail and facial accent of the subject in Naked Portrait Standing from the protrusion of her pubic bone to the swell of her cheeks. As was the tradition of Henri Matisse famous sculptures, Freud explores every shadow, curvature and vacillation of this female form revealed by the play of light across pliant flesh. This figure is a series of gracefully linked shapes that weave their way around her shoulders, breasts, stomach, thighs and knees. The hills and valleys of her flesh echo the rhythms of her body, each muscle and tendon vigorously captured by the angular planes of his brushwork. Not an idealized Renaissance beauty or a classically sculpted nude, the female in Naked Portrait Standing bears the burdens of reality in her awkward stance. "I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be." (Lucian Freud cited in Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Gallery, Lucian Freud, 2000, p. 35). Freud's figures and their imperfections speak the poetry of human existence. They speak of years passed and the vagaries of life from prosperity to pain, fear and self- doubt. Yet despite this intimacy, the figure in Naked Portrait Standing looks away from the painter and the viewer.  The work is therefore not a dialogue or an interaction between sitter and painter, but instead it is a voyeuristic window into a very private, pensive moment.