Love Lucian Freud at the National Gallery, London. Here • Painter and Model • from 1986-87. Incapable of a dull brushstroke. This is Freud’s last painting of Celia Paul. She stands in the studio clothed in her ‘wiped by brushes’ dress with her modeling friend poet Angus Cook sprawled on the chaise. Celia Paul, aged 18, met Freud when she was his student at the Slade School of Fine Art. Freud was then 55 and a visiting lecturer at Slade. They became lovers almost immediately, maintained a relationship for nearly a decade and a complicated intimacy that lasted until Freud’s death in 2011. Freud was, at times, a cruel man. I couldn’t help thinking of Celia Paul’s autobiography Self-Portrait (2019), which details the asymmetry of their relationship, the coercive control, the power games and manipulation that stretched across a substantial age gap. Some scenes are hard to read - Paul’s account of Freud’s initial forceful physical advances; his insistence that she lie naked for him to paint, imposing an acute vulnerability that made her cry - ... #lucianfreud #freud #celiapaul #art #artist #contemporaryart #modernart #painter #painting #oil #canvas #storytelling #fashion #studio #lover #muse #arthistory #portrait #portraiture #figure #figurative #figurativeart #schooloflondon #theamazingpoppingeyes #nationalgallery #london https://www.instagram.com/p/CnNV82tLcel/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
