A Lucian Freud painting of his daughter, Isobel Boyt, was purchased at Sotheby's recent contemporary art sale for £17m. Lucian Freud, son of the architect Ernst Freud and grandson of the famous founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, became famous as a figurative painter. At the center of his work was a man: turning to naturalism, the artist painted portraits and nudes.
The portrait titled “Ib Reading” was created in 1997: Isobel reads Marcel Proust’s novel from the series “In Search of Lost Time”, in the background there is a chest of drawers in which the artist kept his letters and photographs. According to Isobel, her father never told sitters what position to take. He simply invited them to sit on a couch or chair in his studio and then drew. When the portrait was ready, he still invited the sitter to complete the background.
Lucian Freud
Throughout his life, Freud created more than 30 portraits of his children. Most often, in his portraits, people are depicted in a lying or sitting position. He did not resort to sketches, he painted immediately from nature, starting from the head, moving on to other parts of the body. Sometimes it took months to work on one painting, as Freud studied the object for a long time and carefully before completing the work.
