Artist Quotes by Lucian Freud

I want paint to work as flesh.

— Lucian Freud

A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.

— Lucian Freud

When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and…

— Lucian Freud

The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter

— Lucian Freud

As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does

— Lucian Freud

The task of the artist is to make the human being uncomfortable.

— Lucian Freud

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art

— Lucian Freud

What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.

— Lucian Freud

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

— Lucian Freud

Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting…

— Lucian Freud

The picture is all he feels about it, all he thinks worth preserving of it, all he invests it with. If all…

— Lucian Freud

The process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than is the picture. The process in fact is habit-forming

— Lucian Freud

If all the qualities which a painter took from the model for his picture were really taken, no person could be painted…

— Lucian Freud

I am only interested in painting the actual person, in doing a painting of them, not in using them to some ulterior…

— Lucian Freud

I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen... that if painters did know…

— Lucian Freud

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who…

— Lucian Freud

I want paint to work as flesh... my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of…

— Lucian Freud

Were it not for this [dissatisfaction], the perfect painting might be painted, on the completion of which the painter could retire. It…

— Lucian Freud

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art. Eliot said that art is the escape from personality,…

— Lucian Freud

The picture is all he feels about it, all he thinks worth preserving of it, all he invests it with. If all…

— Lucian Freud

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh. The effect that…

— Lucian Freud

I always felt that my work hadn't much to do with art; my admirations for other art had very little room to…

— Lucian Freud

A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in…

— Lucian Freud

The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement

— Lucian Freud

And, since the model he faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture, since the picture is…

— Lucian Freud

It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he [the artist] can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to…

— Lucian Freud

I use the gallery as if it were a doctor. I come for ideas and help - to look at situations within…

— Lucian Freud

I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they…

— Lucian Freud

I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's…

— Lucian Freud

I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to…

— Lucian Freud

A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it…

— Lucian Freud

The paintings live because their creator has been passionately attentive to their theme, and his attention has left something for us to…

— Lucian Freud