After an early period of meticulously painted realistic subjects executed in thin paint Lucian Freud (born 1922 in Berlin/Germany, lives in London/UK), the grandson of Sigmund Freud, concentrated on portraiture from the 1950s onwards. In this field he can be regarded as one of the most important post Second World War painters. He has become famous not only for his individual style of painting, which has changed over the years into a quality of impasto, but also for his redefinition and individual interpretation of subjects such as the nude and the representation of the human face and body.

In many of his portraits, Lucian Freud has painted members of his family, friends, and people from his inner circle in order to be able to interpret the individuality of a person in a sensual and artistic manner. The woman reclining on a bed resting on her elbow in the Double Portrait from 1988-90 in The UBS Art Collection is Lucian Freud’s daughter with the whippet Pluto. While the dog lies asleep on the woman’s arm, she is lost in thought and appears to have been captured in a private moment. The painting provides an example of Lucian Freud’s elaborate intimate and psychological realism, which is achieved not only by the private feel of the situation, but also by the subtle quality of the portrait with its color ranges of white, gray, blue, light and darker brown and black. These colors melt into a homogenous surface with almost abstract brushstroke traces and textural impasto paint qualities, achieved through a time-consuming painting process. Characteristic of Lucian Freud’s paintings is his use of ‘Kremser Weiß’, a white which is used in a higher concentration for the depiction of skin, light reflections on surfaces and other parts of a painting. In addition, and often related to his paintings, Lucian Freud created numerous etchings of which a great number, almost as a collection within a collection, are also part of The UBS Art Collection. Here, the etching Pluto of 1988 relates to the painting Double Portrait.

Reference: William Feaver: Lucian Freud, exh.cat.Tate Britain 2002.