James Fox TV - Great Artists in Their Own Words TV - Lucian Freud: Painted Life TV - Lucian Freud - David Hockney - Fake or Fortune? TV -
It was one of our penetrating painters who would capture the anxiety of his age. Until his death Lucian Freud lived and worked in Britain, but he had originally come here as a refugee from Nazi Germany. And the horrors he had escaped haunted much of his early painting. Dr James Fox, British Masters III: A New Jerusalem, BBC 2013
Girl with a Kitten: poised on a knife-edge between beauty and horror ... You get the feeling that something truly awful is about to happen. ibid.
Freud had articulated the anxiety of post-war Britain. But he offered no salvation. ibid.
The work of Lucian Freud still had the power to startle but with the additional medium of paint on canvas. Great Artists in Their Own Words III: But is it Art? 1976-1993, Equivalent VIII, Gilbert & George, BBC 2013
The first time this secretive man has been filmed working. It is also what turned out to be the very last day he painted. Lucian Freud: Painted Life, BBC 2012
He was famous for mercilessly explicit paintings. ibid.
And celebrated for breaking world records at auction. ibid.
Lucian Freud sacrificed everything for his painting. Happy to be feared if that kept the world at bay. ibid.
The paintings often disturb and yet enchant us too with their intensity. ibid.
Faces are sly or mask-like, lived in or damaged, specimens of his times. ibid.
He started to look at his subjects with an ever greater intensity. ibid.
Lucian felt free to do anything he liked. ibid.
By the mid-1960s he started he paint the whole body ... He showed us the presence of a real body. ibid.
He found the world strange, and he seemed strange to others. He liked it like that. ibid.
In his eighties far from slowing down, the variety of painting quickened. ibid.
An uncompromising portrait of the Queen. ibid.
My preferred subject matter are humans; I’m really interested in them as animals. Lucian Freud, BBC Radio
I was aware that my work wasn’t a vehicle for my feelings. Lucian Freud
I had once photographed Hitler. I was nine, in 1931, and was walking around Berlin with my governess and had my camera with me. I was fascinated by him because he had huge bodyguards and he was really very small. Lucian Freud
I always like being on my own. Lucian Freud
My school reports used to say, ‘takes no part in communal activities’, so I thought at least I’m getting something right. Lucian Freud
All my patience has gone into my work, leaving none for my life. Lucian Freud
My mother was so keen on my becoming an artist it made me feel sick. Lucian Freud
I see as a biologist. When I’m painting people in clothes I’m always thinking of naked people or animals dressed. Lucian Freud
I always felt that my work hadn’t much to do with art. Lucian Freud
My work is autobiographical. It is an attempt at a record. Lucian Freud
I hoped that if I concentrated enough, the intensity of the scrutiny alone would force life into the pictures. Lucian Freud
The paint is the person. I want paint to work for me just as flesh does. Lucian Freud
My naked daughters have nothing to be ashamed of. I wouldn’t be naked in front of them in case they thought I was a nudist. Lucian Freud
I found there was something exhilarating in being forgotten, almost working underground. I paint the sort of paintings I can, not the ones I necessarily want. Lucian Freud
The promise of happiness is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then that the painter realises that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope that the picture might spring to life. Lucian Freud
He was always chasing girls. David Hockney
One of the twentieth century’s most important painters. Famed for his distinctive nudes, Lucian Freud was the most valuable living artist until his death in 2011. Fake or Fortune? BBC 2016
Few of Freud’s juvenile pieces ever appeared on the market. ibid.