LUCIAN FREUD (B. 1922)

Ill in Paris (Hartley 4)

Details

LUCIAN FREUD (B. 1922)
Ill in Paris (Hartley 4)
etching, 1948, on wove paper, signed in pencil, numbered 1/10, with full margins, a tiny pale stray mark at the lower plate edge, a tiny foxmark at the lower right margin corner, areas of pale staining, some with associated lightly skinned areas at the reverse of the margin edges (slightly showing through at the lower center margin edge), otherwise in very good condition
P. 5 1/16 x 7 1/16 in. (129 x 179 mm.)
S. 9 7/8 x 12 7/8 in. (250 x 326 mm.)

Lot Essay

Illin Paris is one of a small handful of early prints by Lucian Freud done with etching tools given to him by the artist Graham Sutherland. While Sutherland's work was moving torwards surrealism which he felt could no longer be expressed through etching, Freud was moving away from the Surrealists torwards a more direct relationship with his subject. His subject being his wife Kitty, daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein. Here we can see where Freud's work is about the distinctions between "fact and truth", a closely cropped picture, Kitty's left eye unflinchingly open, her right eye barely visible, staring at a single thorned rose. After Ill in Paris Freud did not make another print for 34 years, until 1982.

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