Lucian Freud’s majestic The Brigadier, painted between 2003 and 2004, is a powerful, intimate, portrait of Brigadier Andrew-Parker Bowles, a venerable member of the British Establishment. Steeped in the traditions of military portrayals, this painting of a British Brigadier is transformed into a resolutely contemporary painting by Freud’s legendary attention to detail and lucid brushstrokes. It evokes the spirit of the grand military portraits that populate art history, yet in Freud’s hands the lucid brushstrokes produce a portrait that captures the contradictions of the modern world in a very contemporary way.
Lucian Freud’s The Brigadier, a highlight from the Collection of Damon Mezzacappa will be offered in New York on 10 November in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction.