THE PAINTER WITHIN

Looking at Lucian Freud’s self-portraits, one observes the development and maturation of his craft. Open to experimentation with new techniques, pushing boundaries of composition, and paint application, he stated that he asked of his paintings, and his paint, to “astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.”

And, for Freud, it was always about the paint. It directed his work. “I want paint to work as flesh,” he once said, according to artist Lawrence Gowing’s 1982 monograph. “As far as I am concerned, the paint is the person.”

Near 70 years of self-portraiture by the Berlin-born, British artist Lucian Freud is explored at London’s Royal Academy of Arts this winter in a series of more than 50 paintings and works on paper. is the first exhibition to study the gradual change in the