Lucian Freud is one of the defining portraitists of his generation. The artist shared a nuanced understanding of life with his grandfather Sigmund Freud. His paintings embrace the mess of the human mind and body, depicting recurring, sometimes famous figures free of formalities. A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is the first of its kind in the UK to focus primarily on works on paper. ‘Drawing Into Painting’ homes in on the artist’s pencil, ink and pen pieces from the 1930s to the early 20th century, alongside a group of well-known paintings that demonstrate the links between both parts of his practice.
The artist’s expansive creative family features in the show. A 1995 black-and-white etching, one of eight new pieces of its kind acquired by the gallery in connection with the exhibition, captures a relaxed view of his daughter, the designer Bella Freud, lounging in a wicker chair with her head resting casually on one hand. Created using an unusual process for Freud, this work highlights his unique use of line and shadow to build up characterful faces with a powerful sense of movement, seeming to catch his sitters in the middle of an everyday moment.
“My father spent a long time working on ‘Bella in her Pluto T-shirt’, and he reworked my face several times before finalising the etching – it was really unusual for that to happen,” his daughter has said. “And it was quite interesting, in a way, to see that not everything came out right, and how to deal with something when it doesn’t. Sometimes he would ‘scrap’ something, as he called it, and then start again. And this time he just didn’t… Eventually, it was good. I think that’s been a very useful lesson in my work and my life. You don’t give up: you look for a way to see how things can work and then something will come if you’re in that mindset.”
While there is a tenderness to this etching, Freud was known to have a tempestuous relationship with some of his recurring sitters. His regular collaborator, club kid and Leigh Bowery confidante Sue Tilley, was fascinated by his mercurial character, which was as complex as the emotional range of his works. She has described him as “mean, extremely generous, grumpy, funny, loud, quiet”. Kate Moss, who was painted while pregnant by Freud in a moment of intimate vulnerability, has said, “I’ve met lots of interesting people, but Lucian Freud is the one who sticks out because I spent so much time with him. He taught me discipline, which I hadn’t been taught properly before. If I was, like, two seconds late, he would kick off. Once, I was three minutes late, and he went absolutely berserk.”
While Freud’s famous sitters built a powerful creative community in his works, he has also been inspired by numerous artists of the past, as explored in ‘Drawing into Painting’. His process is laid out in the exhibition through a series of childhood drawings, drafts of love letters, unfinished pieces and almost 50 sketchbooks. There are also works by other artists which highlight his key influences, including Jean-Antoine Watteau’s cabinet picture ‘Pierrot Content’ (c.1712) and John Constable’s ‘Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree’ (c.1821), which offers a fascinating insight into his use of mark making away from the human figure. Freud once said that he hoped for his paint to work as flesh. In these lesser-known pieces, it is not paint but line, form and shadow that wrap around the body and bring his subjects evocatively to life.
Lucian Freud, Drawing Into Painting, National Portrait Gallery, 12 February - 4 May 2026. Get tickets.