Man With a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud - Softcover

Martin Gayford

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0500289719 ISBN 13: 9780500289716

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2012

Synopsis

A beautifully produced paperback edition of the literary artbook hailed as one of the best and most continually fascinating books about painting in recent memory. Lucian Freud (1922 2011) spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford. Gayford describes the process chronologically, from the day he arrived for the first sitting through to his meeting with the couple who bought the finished painting. As Freud creates a portrait of Gayford, so the art critic produces his own portrait of the notoriously private artist, recounting their wide-ranging conversations and giving a rare insight into Freud s working practice. The book is illustrated throughout with photographs by David Dawson of Freud at work, with paintings by Freud from the 1940s to the present, and images by other artists discussed by Freud with Gayford. The result vividly conveys what it is like to be on the inside of the process of creating a painting by a great artist. It will be read as long as Freud s work is admired - The Sunday Times If it is Freud who dominates this book, it is Gayford s achievement to bring him out and to do so with wit and humour as well as acute intelligence. Man with a Blue Scarf is literally inimitable no one else is going to get this opportunity. ... It s the real deal The Guardian A journal, an act of confession, a character study of Freud, a piecemeal survey of art history and an investigation into the practicalities of portraiture The Spectator Gayford s observations and Dawson s photos provide a unique insight into the working habits of the greatest painter of the human frame in all its infinite variety New Statesman Freud is vividly surprising, potent and dynamic ... a portrait of an anarchic painter with views on everything from Leonardo s failings to Princess Margaret s voice The Observer

Table of Contents

THE SITTINGS 28 November 2003 4 July 2004 PORTRAIT HEAD August 2004 April 2005 POSTSCRIPT June 2005 Afterword November 2011 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

About this title

Review

Riveting. --The Daily Telegraph

Beautifully ruminative ... a rounded view of an extraordinary and closely guarded life. --Tablet Magazine

Take one art critic, sit him in a studio with the world's greatest living portrait painter, then document what happens. It's an inspired approach to a book. As Freud paints Gayford, both men have plenty of time to ruminate on art and life, resulting in a superlative anecdotal micro-history of painting.
--BOOKSELLER's special Art issue

Beautifully published, with wonderfully selected illustrations - succeeds in creating a bridge between Freud the artist and Freud the man --'Book of the Week', Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday

Both a valuable contribution to art history and a beautiful object in itself ... It will be read as long as Freud's wor --British Museum Magazine

A unique portrait of the artist. --The Belfast Telegraph

Riveting. --The Daily Telegraph

About the Author

Martin Gayford is the chief art critic for Bloomberg News and the author of the acclaimed Rendez-vous with Art, with Philippe de Montebello, and Man With a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0500289719
• ISBN 13: 9780500289716
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248