Lucian Freud - 1993

LUCIAN FREUD
James Hyman
Contemporary Art

Astonishment is not the reaction one would expect to a painting by Lucian Freud, discomfort perhaps, but such is the consistency of his work and so often has it been exhibited in recent years that it has begun to have an almost comforting familiarity. However, Evening in the Studio (1993) (a new and uncatalogued work added on the last week of the exhibition in London) is as challenging a painting as any the artist has produced in the last half century. The repertory of figures is hardly a departure: a dog sits on a bed, a seated woman sews in the background and in the foreground - dominating the scene - is the generously fleshy form of a woman who basks stranded on the wooden floor boards like a sweaty toppled Botero. But what is new about this painting and the related monuments to flesh - a theatrical series of paintings of the bulky frame of Leigh Bowery - is the element of pure theatre and the way such pictures presuppose the presence of an audience. As such they represent a profound shift in Freud's work over the last decade and one that is of far greater significance than stylistic changes such as a freer use of paint.

The Hayward Gallery retrospective in 1988 provided an intensive lesson in sustained scrutiny, but the different emphasis of the retrospective at the Tate Gallery, Liverpool in 1991 suggested a worrying new tendency: it seemed that whereas the earliest paintings derived their strength from a concern with psychology and anatomy, in the most recent paintings the nudes had become drained of personality and vitality. However, it now appears that to have made such judgments was to miss the point, for the most recent paintings on show at the Whitechapel were not only a revelation but a vindication.

In part this new openness is due to the function now assumed by the artist's studio. Where once it was an emphatically private realm, since the early eighties it has assumed a more public function, so that in recent works it resembles a stage set full of props (a pile of rags, a chair, a bed, a stool and familiar floor boards shooting into the distance) to be peopled by a cast of characters who either dress up or down for the artist, and our, amusement. In part, too, this change is a product of Freud's admiration for the Old Masters (and competitiveness with them), which has recently resulted in a marriage between the grandeur of the court of jesters of Velasquez and the frivolity of Watteau's `fetes champetres', to produce entertaining confections for our delight. The impression is that of performance, the effect deeply artificial and, while in the past such scenes owed something to the precious frozen intensity of Dutch genre scenes, they now possess the voluptuous three dimensional quality of `tableaux vivants'. Paintings of Kitty from the 1940s, for example, were essentially private, with Freud's then wife on the verge of tears. But in recent paintings there is a strong sense of display and the impression that the subject needs, and is aware of, an audience.

The hanging at the Whitechapel unfortunately did not always show individual painting to best effect and did little to acknowledge this shift from private to public. The inclusion of drawings and etchings alongside paintings overfilled the lower galleries (one of Freud's finest prints, Portrait of Bruce Bernard, was virtually lost, being hung low down on a partition wall) and the impact of this overcrowding was to draw attention to the artist's productivity rather than to emphasize individual paintings. The lack of captions, although clearly intended to allow for a concentration on the pictures themselves, also proved deeply frustrating. But most jarring of all was the final room which bizarrely included not only the spectacular recent paintings of Leigh Bowery, but also the two earliest and most private pictures in the show both of the artist's mother. One of these, a small, moving drawing of The Painter's Dead Mother, 1989 was uncomfortably placed in a corner on a narrow wall beside the exit - a pity since of all the drawings in the show this was the most powerful: what it lacked in virtuosity, elegance and stylisation it made up for in rawness and vulnerability. Surely these two pictures of Freud's mother could have begun the show, which would have made sense in terms of chronology and quality as well as providing a context for what followed. This would have made a more powerful and poignant opening than the low-key wall of three prints and a drawing which greeted the visitor.

The most coherent and contained room in the entire exhibition was devoted to images of two male models, Angus and Cerith. These works now seem to represent a pivotal moment in Freud's evolution, witnessing a more active collaboration on the part of the model. Most impressive was Two Men in the Studio in which Angus stands, an arm raised above his head, echoing the poses in Rodin's Age of Bronze and Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, and suggesting that at this late stage in the century Freud is striving for his own `tableau manifest'.
In this ambition there is a sense of Freud coming full circle, for as early as 1951 when he was asked to produce a painting for the Festival of Britain he painted his largest and most ambitious painting to date, Interior in Paddington. For this latest retrospective Freud has similarly raised his performance with the adoption of the largest canvases of his career, again coinciding with the challenges of a public exhibition and resulting in one of his finest paintings, the epic And the Bridegroom in which Bowery and a friend are shown sleeping on a bed. It may well be that an artist requires the challenge of public exposure to push their work further. Certainly the massive pictures of Leigh Bowery which were unveiled at the Whitechapel for the first time impressed the most and did much to enhance Freud's reputation.

It is all too easy to react against an artist whose work is over-exposed and excessively praised, and even easier to react against a person whose every foible is subject to interpretation and veneration. It is especially easy to criticise at a time when it has become fashionable to argue that painting is passé and figuration dead (and certain art publications decided not even to review this exhibition). But through the chatter, and despite the silences, the work speaks for itself and the exhibition has been one of the most popular in years. The message is simple. Lucian Freud, one of the world's finest figurative painters, is now reaching the height of his powers.

This impression was confirmed by the exhibition's staging at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (which opened in December 1993). With the addition of work from all periods of Freud's career and the use of several galleries, the exhibition looked magnificent. A series of early heads (principally from American collections) as well as a few well selected paintings from the later 1960s and early 1970s (perhaps the weakest period in Freud's career) gave way to the recent paintings. This was useful in highlighting the self-referential nature of Freud's work especially since many of the most recent work reprise earlier themes. The rumpled red carpet in Interior in Paddington (1951) for example, is reused in Naked Man- Back View (1991-92) - a painting of Leigh Bowery recently acquired by the Metropolitan.

The relatively low ceiling height served to emphasise the monumental scale of the most recent paintings while the inclusion of fewer etchings than in London and the use of a series of contained, thematic rooms allowed for a more integrated hang. This reflected a genuine sensitivity to the work and allowed for a subtle interplay between pictures: for example, in contrast to its treatment in London Freud's drawing of his dead mother was presented beside a small painting of a baby, thereby encapsulating the artist's concern with the passage of time from birth to death.
Coinciding with the Metropolitan exhibition was a series of shows at commercial galleries which focused either on very early or very recent work. Most notable was the Robert Miller Gallery's show of early paintings, pastels and line drawings which included loans from the Tate Gallery, Metropolitan Museum and private collections. This was remarkable both for its high standard and for the inclusion of a number of unfamiliar works. Although some of the drawings were little more than scraps they included a powerful portrait of Christian Bérard (1948). Also noteworthy were some stunning, early still-life miniatures as well as paintings of Lincoln Kirstein (one of Freud's earliest patrons) and his friend the conductor George Balanchine (both from 1950). These together with the portrait of the theatre designer Bérard provided a fascinating early musical context for Freud.

At Matthew Marks, meanwhile, an exhibition of recent drawings and prints included a fine drawing of Bowery; editioned and uneditioned prints among them an impressive picture of a man lying on a couch; a peculiar, erotic drawing of a bird; and a massive `drawing' on canvas of a reclining woman which looked like an abandoned under-drawing for a painting.

These exhibitions were accompanied by eulogistic articles in the American press including pieces by long-term admirers such as John Richardson and Robert Hughes, and as in London the galleries were full of people.

David Sylvester once concluded a eulogistic essay on David Bomberg by stating why he so admired the artist. There were two reasons, he wrote, "The early work and the late work". On the evidence of these triumphant New York exhibitions, the same could be said for Lucian Freud.

Lucian Freud: Recent Work, can be seen at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 6 AprIl -13 June.


Contemporary Art, 1993