MAN WITH A BLUE SCARF: On Sitting for a Portrait

Lucian Freud (1922-2011), widely regarded as the greatest figurative painter of our time, spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford. The daily narrative of their encounters takes us into that most private place, the artist's studio, and to the heart of the working methods of this modern master - both technical and subtly psychological. From this emerges an understanding of what a portrait is, but something else is also built up: a portrait, in words, of Freud himself. Full of wry and revealing observations, the inside story of how it feels to pose for a remarkable artist and be transformed into a work of art. Based on a diary the author kept during the year and a half in which he sat for two portraits, one in oils, one etched. 'I have long been convinced that Lucian Freud is the real thing: a truly great painter living among us... The experience of posing seems somewhere between transcendental meditation and a visit to the barber's. There is a rather pleasant feeling of concentrating and being alert...' "Could you move your scarf just an inch? As it is, it looks a little bit 'dressed'". At moments sitting seems an almost embarrassingly physical affair: an enterprise that concerns the model's skin, muscles, flesh and also, I suppose - if there is such a thing - self.' Many colour and other artworks and images, Thames & Hudson paperback, 248 pages.