National Gallery in spare moments, a ritual he once
described as, “going to the doctor”. He would scrutinise
the details of these paintings in search of a means to
improve his own work, and yet he wanted to remain
outside the boundaries of tradition.
In 1987, when he was asked to select a series of his
favourite works for the National Gallery exhibition, The
Artist’s Eye, he was reticent about discussing their
significance to him, claiming, “just as the language of
the art is silent, so is the beauty of the painting that
renders the spectator speechless.”
A selection of the paintings Lucian Freud not only
admired, but owned, is about to go on display at the
National Gallery, as part of the exhibition Painters’
Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck. The show presents
a collection of works once owned by fellow artists.
The starting point for the exhibition came with a
donation from the estate of Lucian Freud after the
artist’s death, that of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s
1870 portrait, Italian Woman. It was given to the
National Gallery in lieu of inheritance tax, but also as aOPPOSITE
Birthday card from Frank
Auerbach to Lucian Freud
TOP RIGHT Jean-Baptiste-
Camille Corot,
Italian Woman
or Woman with Yellow
Sleeve (L’Italienne),
about 1870,
oil on canvas,
73x59cm
BELOW Paul Cézanne,
Three Bathers, 1879-1882,
oil on canvas,
55x52 cmMATISSE’S TREASURES
Not only a revolutionary Post-Impressionist painter,
colourist Henri Matisse was also a keen art collector, a
habit he began by swapping pieces with fellow artists. The
works of Picasso came and went from his walls as the
tempestuous rivalry between the two played out. At one
time, he owned two portraits of Picasso’s lover, Dora Maar.
Most notably, he was the proud owner of perhaps the
finest Cézanne, Three Bathers (1879-1882), an expense he
could not afford, but as he considered Cézanne to be “a
sort of god of painting,” he couldn’t afford not to.
Matisse returned to the work again and again, allowing it
to inform his bold painting style as he moved closer to
abstraction. “It had this tremendous influence on his own
work; at the end of his life he said that painting had been
absolutely essential,” explains Anne Robbins, curator of the
Painters’ Paintings exhibition.‘thank you’ gesture to Britain for offering his family
refuge when they fled Germany in 1933. “This is really
what got us thinking about the extra level of interest
conferred to a painting when it has been in the
collection of a great artist,” explained the exhibition’s
curator, Anne Robbins. She continued, “we think we
know Freud, Degas, Matisse, and looking at the
pictures they chose to surround themselves with adds
a new dimension.”
The walls of Freud’s west London studio were
sparse, save a few of the carefully selected artworks.
The Italian Woman hung there for 10 years, and sat
above the fireplace next to a birthday card to Freud
drawn by Frank Auerbach. This was a pairing that
perfectly represented Freud’s own portraits, which sat
somewhere between traditional art and rebellious
contemporary painting. The Corot was a rare find for
Freud, as the French painter is generally better known
for his landscapes. “It’s quite arresting, the way that it© THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDONPETIT PALAIS, MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE LA VILLE DE PARIS © PETIT PALAIS / ROGER-VIOLLETTHE SYNDICS OF THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE© FRANK AUERBACH, COURTESY MARLBOROUGH FINE ART. PHOTO FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE>Artists & Illustrators 7170 Lucian Freud2.indd 71 12/05/2016 11:12