Lucian Freud, Still Life with Zimmerlinde, c. 1950. Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images.
In this talk introduced by Christopher Woodward, director of the Garden Museum, Dr Giovanni Aloi, guest curator of their current exhibition Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits, emphasises the importance of gardens and domestic spaces as opportunities to rethink our relationships with plants.
From the delicate realism of the cyclamen’s petals to the bold brushstrokes that immortalize his overgrown garden, Lucian Freud's overlooked paintings of plants reveal the artist’s singular approach to plant life and show how working with plants emboldened him to experiment with style and composition.
Many of the potted and garden plants Freud painted are akin to wise old friends who’ve seen it all, but know better than to speak. Yellowed leaves, blemishes, and tears are celebrated as distinctive traits of the unique identity of an individual plant: portraits capturing a history of shared growth entwining artist and plant in ways that words can never quite adequately capture.
The exhibition Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits is at the Garden Museum from 14 October 2022 to 5 March 2023. The catalogue for Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits has been supported with an ARTscapades grant.
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This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live, or on-demand for three weeks afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.