Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings

Dec 16, 2007–Mar 10, 2008

MoMA

Lucian Freud. Kai. 1991–92. Sheet: 31 × 24 9/16″ (78.7 × 62.4 cm). Publisher: Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Printer: Marc Balakjian at Studio Prints, London. Edition: 40. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. © 2008 Lucian Freud
  • MoMA, Floor 3, Exhibition Galleries Special Exhibitions Gallery

One of the foremost figurative artists working today, Lucian Freud (British, born Germany 1922) has redefined portraiture and the nude through his unblinking scrutiny of the human form. Although best known as a painter, etching has become integral to his practice. This exhibition will present the full scope of Freud’s achievements in etching, including some seventy-five examples ranging from rare, early experiments in the 1940s to the increasingly large and complex compositions created since his rediscovery of the medium in the early 1980s. In a dramatic and unusual cross-media installation, it will also include a selection of related paintings and drawings, illuminating the crucial, cross-pollinating relationship between Freud’s etchings and paintings. Freud is not a traditional printmaker. He treats the etching plate like a canvas, standing the copper upright on an easel. He typically depicts the same sitters in etching as in painting, always working directly from his models and demarcating their forms through meticulous networks of finely etched lines. But with their figures dramatically cropped or isolated against empty backgrounds, Freud’s etchings achieve a startling new sense of psychological tension and formal abstraction. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Organized by Starr Figura, Assistant Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books.

The exhibition is supported in part by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art.

Publications

  • Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 144 pages
  • Press release 5 pages

Artist

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].