Lucian Freud (drawing Into Painting)

Edited by Howgate Sarah; Contributions by Dawson, David; Text by Freud Bella; Text by Bentley, Tanya; Text by Lampert Catherine; Text by Seligman Isabel; Text by Tóibín, Colm
Description:
Drawing into Painting reveals Lucian Freud’s lifelong focus on the human face and form, tracing the intimate dialogue between his sketches and paintings from the 1930s to the early 21st century.

Lucian Freud (1922–2011) is celebrated as one of the great figurative realist artists of the twentieth century, who devoted his artistic life to portraiture. Famously stating that ‘everything is a portrait’, he created intensely observed portraits of animals and plants, as well as his family members and those in his social circle and daily life.

Drawing into Painting explores how drawing remained central to Freud’s artistic practice throughout his life. From quick sketches to finished works in charcoal, pastel, and etching, his drawings offer a rare window into his process, revealing shifts in style, experimentation, and his evolving way of seeing. Spanning from his childhood to his final years, the book traces the unconventional path from his drawing practice to his painting, and back again.

Alongside a selection of key paintings by Freud and others, the book includes conversations with David Dawson, Freud’s close friend and assistant, and Bella Freud, the artist’s daughter. Insightful essays by writer and curator Catherine Lampert, British Museum drawings curator Isabel Seligman, and acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín further illuminates Freud’s world and legacy.
Table of contents:
INTRODUCTION:
DRAWING INTO PAINTING by Sarah Howgate
LUCIAN FREUD’S
ADOLESCENT DRAWINGS (1939–40) by Tanya Bentley
DAVID DAWSON AND SARAH HOWGATE
IN CONVERSATION
‘TO PORTRAY WITH ANY DEGREE
OF PROFUNDITY’ by Catherine Lampert
DRAWING SPEAKING TO PAINTING by Isabel Seligman
STRATAGEMS OF UPSET by Colm Tóibín
BELLA FREUD AND SARAH HOWGATE
IN CONVERSATION

Biographical note:
Sarah Howgate is Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her previous exhibitions and publications include Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting (2025), David Hockney: Drawing from Life (2020), Tacita Dean: Landscape, Portrait, Still Life (2018), Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask (2017), Friendship Portraits: Chantal Joffe and Isabel Myerscough (2015), Lucian Freud Portraits (2012), and David Hockney Portraits (2006).

Tanya Bentley is Curator, Contemporary, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has contributed to recent publications including Francis Bacon: Human Presence (2024), Icons & Identities (2020), Tacita Dean: Landscape, Portrait, Still Life (2018) and Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask (2017). She is curator of a three-year rotating display (2023–2026) of materials from the Lucian Freud Archive held at the National Portrait Gallery.

David Dawson studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art and at the Royal College of Art. He met Lucian Freud soon after he had completed his Master’s degree, and began to work as his studio assistant. In 2000, he began photographing daily life in Freud’s studio, documenting the progress of Freud’s work and recording the artist with his sitters. Dawson worked with Freud until the artist’s death in 2011, during which time he was himself a sitter for Freud on numerous occasions. He is a co-editor of the Phaidon publication Lucian Freud and of Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud 1939–1954, both released in 2022.

Bella Freud, former sitter for her late father Lucian Freud, is a lauded designer. Establishing her namesake label in 1990