02/09/2020
Feaver’s pitch ... “ ... There are echoes here of the first volume of Feaver’s biography, which was packed with good stories about Freud’s rackety private life and rollicking friendships with fellow artists like Francis Bacon. The same elements are also present in this second volume, including some splendid vignettes of Freud kicking a gallery owner he disliked (“Treated it like a penalty kick: just a quick below-the-kneecap”) and trying to deal with the many children he had sired over the years, not all of whom he “recognised,” as Feaver neatly puts it. The main difference is that here these stories are little more than bits of highlighting, like the patch of shiny skin in Reflection. Instead the focus throughout this volume is on Freud’s daily routine in his studio: a spacious top-floor flat in 36 Holland Park, where two or three different scenes could be arranged under the skylight at any one time, and where the walls gradually filled up with paint scraping and scribbled phone numbers. If Feaver’s first volume was a portrait of the artist playing around, here the main focus is Freud at work. ... “
The British artist pushed his life and art to the limit
