Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints
Toby Treves
Format:
Hardback with slipcase
Publication Date:
24 May 2022
ISBN:
978-1-9163474-5-8
Dimensions:
320 pages: 350 x 300 mm
Illustrations:
140 colour images
This first volume of the Lucian Freud catalogue raisonné focuses on the artist’s prints. The only complete volume of Freud’s prints, the book builds upon the work of earlier cataloguers and adds much new material which has come to light since the artist’s death. The volume records every print Freud made, from the early linocuts of the 1930s to his last etching published in 2007. Each work—including uneditioned etchings and unique proofs—is reproduced and fully catalogued by Toby Treves. Treves’s remarks include clear, precise technical detail for specialists and are informed by his knowledge of the wider oeuvre. An essay by the critic and Freud specialist Sebastian Smee, and an interview between art historian Martin Gayford and Freud’s main printmaker, Marc Balakjian, provide further insights into this part of the artist’s oeuvre. The catalogue raisonné has been designed by Design Holborn, also responsible for the recent publications Lucian Freud, with text by Martin Gayford, and Lucian Freud: A Life.
‘Catalogues raisonnés often prove unsatisfactory reading experiences…but this one is a pleasure to read. The essays are approachable, the catalogue entries are thorough, with good commentaries. The works develop logically, with some surprises and tours de force. The large size of the book (35 x 30 cm) allows substantial and detailed illustrations, all of which seem to be newly photographed. This certainly whets the appetite for catalogues of the paintings and drawings and reassures readers that the task is entrusted to safe hands. Publisher and authors have done admirably by one of Britain’s most distinguished artists with this impeccable, rigorous and beautiful book.’ – Alexander Adams, The British Art Journal, vol. XXIII, no. 2, Autumn 2022
‘The book is a sumptuous production, in large format, 350 by 400 mm, housed in a slipcase with a full-page reproduction of each of the 112 prints… Another welcome aspect is the logic of reproducing the prints relative to actual size… This publication is a fitting testament to Freud’s contribution to print and an excellent scholarly resource.’ – Paul Coldwell, Print Quarterly, vol. XL, no. 2, June 2023
‘Treves’s catalogue raisonné of the prints provides invaluable information about all of this, and offers clues to much more. In publishing every print, in every state, Treves allows us to see Freud’s working methods in a way that would never be possible with the paintings. Here we witness Freud irreversibly cropping a large-scale portrait of Susanna Chancellor with whippet, until it’s a portrait of the whippet with half a headless person. We see him removing a knob of hair from Emily Bearn’s head and a raised arm from a portrait of Angus Cook. The appendix includes not only plates that were never printed but plates that were never +nished, including the very last: a portrait, with traces of pastel still visible on the copper, of the restaurateur Jeremy King. At the time of his death, Freud had been working on it for three years.’ – Gaby Wood, London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 11, 1 June 2023 (click here to read the review in full)
Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints was shortlisted for the British Book Design and Production Awards 2022, in the ‘Scholarly, Academic and Reference Book’ category.
Toby Treves is an independent art historian and a former collections curator of twentieth century British Art at Tate. His previous publications include Peter Lanyon: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings (Modern Art Press 2018), and he is the co-author of Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, which will be published by Modern Art Press next year.
