HEYWOOD HILL'S PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR

IF you admire the artist, Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings may be the publishing event of the century. In four stunning volumes, and a handsome slip case, this publication documents all of the artist’s known oil paintings with detailed entries, new photography and accompanying essays.

Ten years in the making the result is a spectacular achievement in art scholarship and contemporary publishing.

Many of Freud's most acclaimed works are, of course, in oil. (Think of that extraordinary David Dawson photograph of the shirtless artist in his studio at night, hell bent on a canvas, armed as if for battle with brush and oil-smeared palette in hand.) This famously intense artist had a ferocious appetite for work, especially in oil, all of which is revealed here. Over 500 works are beautifully presented and expertly catalogued by Catherine Lampert and Toby Treves, with separate entries on each work providing essential information, provenance and history of exhibition and literature, followed by individual remarks. Lampert and Treves offer fresh analysis of the paintings, informed by their collaborative research and collective knowledge of Freud’s, let's say it, oeuvre. Almost every work is reproduced in colour, including many for the first time.
 
The catalogue contains several essays by other contributors, including the critic and Freud specialist Sebastian Smee, National Portrait Gallery research fellow Jacob Simon, and curator and art historian Colin Wiggins. A chronology of Freud’s life and work, comprehensive lists of solo and group exhibitions, and a bibliography provide a full overview of Freud’s career and critical responses to it, making the volumes indispensable for research.

At Heywood Hill we salute all those responsible for this wonderful title, especially those at the Modern Art Press. 

About the Authors:

Catherine Lampert, an independent curator and art historian, was director of the Whitechapel Gallery between 1988 and 2001. 

Toby Treves is an independent art historian and a former collections curator of twentieth-century British art at the Tate.