Lucian Freud

Now in his eighty-fourth year, Lucian Freud is widely regarded as one of the greatest living painters. Over six decades, he has redefined portraiture and the nude producing works of extraordinary vitality and presence. His subjects are often friends, family, fellow painters, lovers, and children. Even Queen Elizabeth II agreed to his request to paint her portrait; the painting wasn't commissioned but done on Lucian Freud's request as a gift to the queen.

The book will survey Freud's work over the past seventy years and will include much of his early material, previously unseen or unreproduced. William Feaver's selection will demonstrate the artist's persistent resolve and his ability to make the ordinary and the personal universal. Freud has been described as painting's greatest living realist. He is more than that: he has said, repeatedly, that everything is a self-portrait and in this sense he is an artist who, wholly lacking in pretension, shows us as we are and what we are. The book will be arranged chronologically. It will include an exhibition list and bibliography.