‘I’ve always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It’s people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.’
──Lucian Freud
“我常想要在我的畫作中創造戲劇,這也是為甚麼我畫人像。從一開始,恰恰是人為我的作品帶來了戲劇感。最簡單的動作傳達著故事。”
── 路西恩 · 弗洛伊德
Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was one of the most important and influential artists of his generation. Paintings of people were central to his work and this major exhibition, spanning over seventy years, is the first to focus on his portraiture.
Concentrating on particular periods and groups of sitters to show Freud’s stylistic development and technical virtuosity, the exhibition includes both iconic and rarely-seen portraits of the artist’s lovers, friends and family. Described by the artist as ‘people in my life’, these portraits have been selected to demonstrate the psychological drama and unrelenting observational intensity of his work.
Sittersrepresented in the exhibition include family members, particularly his mother Lucie, and artists such as Francis Bacon and David Hockney, and the performance artist Leigh Bowery. As well as major portraits of key muses such as Bowery, his mother and family, the exhibition highlights the recurring importance of the self-portrait in Freud’s work.
As well as including Freud’s most important portraits from the earliest in the 1940s, the exhibition will provide an opportunity for visitors to see – for the first time – Portrait of the Hound 2011, the unfinished painting of Freud’s assistant David Dawson and his dog Eli. This was the portrait on which the artist was still working until shortly before his death on 20 July 2011.
路西恩 · 弗洛伊德(Lucien Freud,1922-2011),是他那一代最重要和最具影響力的藝術家之一。他的作品專注於油畫人像,此次大型展覽橫跨70年,是對於他人像作品的首次集中展示。
展覽以其特定時期和不同模特為線索,展示了弗洛伊德風格的發展和技法的精湛技藝。展覽包括了藝術家具有標誌性並罕見的藝術家為其愛人、朋友和家庭成員的畫像。用弗洛伊德自己的話來說,這些“在我生命中的人”的肖像用來展示弗洛伊德的心理的戲劇性和他孜孜不倦的繪畫強度以及高度觀察的敏銳視角。
在展覽中展現的模特包括弗洛伊德的家庭成員,尤其是他的母親露西(Lucie),藝術家如弗郎西斯 · 培根(Francis Bacon)、大衛 · 霍克尼(David Hockney),表演藝術家雷 · 波威(Leigh Bowery)。雷 · 波威,他的母親和家人,被弗洛伊德視為靈感的泉源。展覽同時也突出了弗洛伊德的在不斷創作的自畫像的重要性。
此次展覽收錄了弗洛伊德自二十世紀四十年代以來最重要的人像作品,同時,展覽也為觀眾們提供了首次欣賞弗洛伊德最後未完成的遺作的機會──“獵狗肖像2011”,畫中是弗洛伊德的助手大衛 · 道森(David Dawson)還有他的狗埃力(Eli)。這是弗洛伊德在2011年7月20日過世前不久仍在繪製的作品。