Modernists and Mavericks

by Martin Gayford

  Their friendship did not get going properly, however, until Bacon returned from the Côte d’Azur in 1949, enjoying its most intense period in the years that followed. At this time, Freud was struck not so much by what Bacon painted as how fast he did so, and the intense criticism to which he subjected his own work. He would generally go round to Bacon’s studio in the afternoon, he told the critic Sebastian Smee, and Bacon might say, ‘“I’ve done something really extraordinary today.” And he’d done it all in that day. Amazing.’ Freud recounted how Bacon would have ‘ideas that he put down and then destroyed and then quickly put down again’.

  *

  Freud, on the other hand, could only ever work extremely slowly. Posing for him was like submitting to ‘delicate eye surgery’, as the painter Michael Wishart, who sat for him in the 1940s, described it. The procedure was intimate and prolonged, with Freud working on a canvas or panel balanced on his knees. When he painted Bacon in 1952, however, he chose a small copper plate. Bacon subjected himself to his friend’s minutely intense scrutiny, though Freud’s memory was that the sittings were not inordinately prolonged:

  I always take a long time, but I don’t remember it taking that long. He complained a lot about sitting – which he always did about everything – but not to me at all. I heard from people in the pub. He was very good about it.

  The result, even more than Freud’s paintings of his wife, Kitty, was clearly a masterpiece. For at least two decades it was Freud’s best-known picture (stolen in 1988 and at the time of writing had still not been recovered).

  In this painting the viewer is brought much nearer to the surface of the sitter’s skin than one would be in a normal social encounter. Bacon’s face almost fills the whole area of the picture, so that his eyes nearly touch the frame on either side. One is deprived of the normal distance that divides us from people we meet – and also those we see in pictures. That is part of the power to discomfort that these early Freuds possess. We are not used to being eye-ball to eye-ball like this with strangers. But, beyond that, the portrait had an extraordinary quality of inner tension, which led the critic Robert Hughes to describe it as resembling a grenade a fraction of a second before it explodes; paradoxically this feeling was intensified by the enamel smoothness of the technique.

  A number of Freud’s pictures of this era, including the portrait of Bacon, were painted on copper – a support that had been popular in the early seventeenth century for small pictures, but not much used since. Freud employed it for small works, almost tiny enough to count as miniatures. The fine sable brushes he painted with produced a glassy, untextured surface. Auerbach chose an archaic word to describe this phase of Freud’s work, ‘limning’ – which is generally associated with Elizabethan and Jacobean miniaturists – and it fits.

  Freud’s portrait of Bacon is a testament to closeness in every way – phys-ical, psychological, emotional. There was nothing in the least sexual in the relationship between the two, although Freud recalled that Bacon’s elderly lover, Eric Hall, ‘who kept him’, was suspicious that there was. He never felt the slightest hint of an advance from Bacon and the lack of any tension of that kind is confirmed by Bacon’s Portrait of Lucian Freud (1951). In its way it is a remarkable compliment since it was his first portrait of a named individual (although based bizarrely on a photograph of Franz Kafka). For whatever reason, the result was utterly devoid of the violent energy and sense of menace that normally made Bacon’s work so extraordinary.

  LUCIAN FREUD Francis Bacon, 1952

  By this time Freud, for his part, had developed his idiosyncratic way of working, a method that – as the English novelist Anthony Powell wrote of the world view of one of his characters – was probably ‘ill-adapted for use by anyone but himself’. He explained it in a statement entitled ‘Some thoughts on painting’ published in the magazine Encounter in July 1954. First he defined himself as an artist who uses ‘life itself’ as his subject matter, translating it into art ‘almost literally’. For this purpose, he worked with the subject in front of him or constantly in mind; later in his career, Freud would refuse to paint a brushstroke of a picture unless the model was there in the studio (this applied even to the floor boards or the furniture).

  For Freud, his observation of the subject wasn’t confined to formal sittings. It went on all the time he was with the person – or animal – he was painting, and when he was engaged on a picture ‘the subject must be kept under closest observation’, night and day if possible, so that he, she or it could reveal everything about themselves: ‘every facet of their lives or lack of life, through movements and attitudes, through every variation from one moment to another’. In this Freud included their ‘aura’ – by which he meant the effect they have on the space around them. This could ‘be as different as the effect of a candle and an electric light bulb’. Such a level of scrutiny sounds daunting, but for many models – those he was not having love affairs with, for example – it came down to spending a lot of time with the artist, eating meals together, chatting.

  But now comes the twist. Up to this point, Freud sounded much like what he called merely an ‘executive artist’ – one who strives to imitate exactly what is there. But for him, all that observation was merely the beginning of the creative process. From everything he observed, he made a selection; and it was that choice that gave the picture its power. Yet, despite the close scrutiny – each follicle and fold of skin being documented from inches away – Freud wasn’t particularly interested in creating a good likeness. What he was after was quite different: a picture that would have a life of its own. And that was not achieved by an artist who merely copied nature superficially, it was necessary to change it. What the picture should contain was the artist’s own feelings and thoughts about the subject, put together in such a way that it acquired a power and presence of its own:

  Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture, since the picture is going to be there on its own, it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model … The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement. The picture is all he feels about it, all he thinks worth preserving of it, all he invests it with.

  Like Pygmalion, Freud claimed to ‘dream’ that his picture might actually come to life, and only when it reached completion did he realize that it was just going to be another picture.

  In practice, however, despite Freud’s lordly view of the artist’s omnipotence in the studio, there might be disputes with the model. One such was generated by Interior at Paddington (1951), the first of a series of pictures for which the photographer Harry Diamond posed. Diamond was a close contemporary and – perhaps in some respects – alter ego of the artist. He was also Jewish but, rather than coming from a background of wealth and celebrity like Freud did, Diamond had grown up poor in Bethnal Green. He was, Freud believed, ‘aggressive as he had a bad time being brought up in the East End and being persecuted’. But then Freud too, as a young man, was aggressive; indeed, this formed the bond between him and Diamond. ‘He was helpful to me, having grown up … with Mosley’s Blackshirts around, in various fights I used to get into. He would sometimes say, “No, this is too dangerous, you had better get out”, that kind of thing.’ In this first picture Diamond’s right hand is clenched into a fist although his gaze is thoughtful, if perhaps wary.

  On the Soho scene, Diamond was known as ‘the man in the mac’ and had achieved the rare feat of being barred from the French House pub, having thrown a glass of beer at the proprietor Gaston Berlemont. He and Freud had known each other for years when, in 1950, Freud asked him to sit. Interior at Paddington was one of the artist’s most immediately successful early works: it was a prize-winner in the Arts Council’s exhibition ‘60 Paintings for ’51’, bought for £500 by the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and shown at the Venice Biennale.

  LUCIAN FREUD Interior at Paddington, 1951

  At thi
s point Freud still painted sitting down, a constriction he soon came to find unbearable. But, at five feet high, it would have been impossible to paint this canvas with it resting on his knees. So he must have executed it while seated at an easel, peering intensely at the model and his surroundings.

  This – and the alliance between these two young men, sealed by shared violence and disquiet – begins to explain the atmosphere of the picture: its tension and strangeness in which every fold of Diamond’s mackintosh is studied with mesmerizing attention, so that it becomes as beautiful as the satin robe of a courtier by Anthony van Dyck. The plant is as much of a portrait as the man, every sharply angular leaf treated as an individual.

  Even so, Diamond was ‘slightly miffed’ about the image: ‘People come up and say what a great painting it is, and I say, “Yeah, but I don’t really have short legs”. In point of fact, my proportions are very good.’ To this complaint Freud responded that ‘the whole thing was that his legs were too short’. This might seem to contradict his stated position in Encounter that likeness was not paramount in his painting. The truth was that, to Freud, likeness both did and did not matter. ‘My work is purely autobiographical,’ he later declared, ‘I work from people that interest me, and that I care about and think about, in rooms that I live in and know.’ If the painter doesn’t know the sitter, he said on another occasion, ‘it can only be like a travel book’. That said, he reserved the right to make any alterations he saw fit, for the good of the painting.

  *

  What Freud and Bacon were united in opposing was something called ‘illustration’. By this Bacon meant not just ‘remaking the look of the image’, but trying to ‘open up so many layers of feeling if possible’. Mysteriously, this was done by great artists such as Velázquez, but could no longer be done ‘for very many reasons’, but particularly because of the advent of photography; worthwhile paintings could not be created by copying photographs. Freud, although he stuck much more closely to what was observable, essentially agreed. That was why he only depicted those he knew well: who else, he asked, ‘could he portray with any profundity?’

  Winston Churchill at the presentation of the Graham Sutherland portrait at Westminster Hall on the occasion of his 80th birthday, 30 November 1954

  Even so, the concept of illustration is a little elusive. As it happens, however, it is illustrated itself by the portraits done by Bacon’s old friend and Freud’s early mentor, Graham Sutherland. It was Sutherland who painted the most famous and controversial portrait of the decade. This represented the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and was commissioned in 1954 at a fee of 1,000 guineas. The plan was for it to hang in the Houses of Parliament after the Prime Minister’s death, but it was to be given to him initially as a gift at a ceremony to mark his eightieth birthday. Notoriously, on seeing the painting, Churchill and his wife were appalled, so much so that the latter eventually had it destroyed. Churchill, with heavy sarcasm, described the picture as ‘a remarkable example of modern art’, but that, ironically, was just what it was not. Sutherland’s line was sharper than that of a jobbing portrait painter, and his characterization more incisive, but essentially he was offering a chic updating of the grand portrait tradition. On occasion Sutherland used photography as a tool, twice taking his photographer friend Felix Man along to sittings, since he felt ‘Sir W’ was unusually restless and he needed to use every means he could to ‘gather information’. Even when he did not use photographs, there was something photographic about all Sutherland’s portraits: an air of a luxuriously handcrafted snapshot.

  This was illustration, though of an upmarket variety. Years later, on the last occasion Sutherland and Bacon met, the former remarked that he had been doing some portraits and wondered whether Francis had seen any. Came the deadly reply: ‘Very nice if you like the covers of Time magazine.’ They never spoke again, but Bacon clearly had a point. Time magazine covers were the epitome of illustration – obviously photo-based, executed with professionalism and panache. Strangely, Lucian Freud was eventually commissioned to produce one himself. Less surprisingly, the project was a failure.

  This, however, did not happen until Freud had altered the way he painted, and fallen out of style. The proximity to the model and his immobility became intolerable to the artist himself. In the mid-1950s he felt an impulse to stand up, and also to paint in a looser, freer fashion. He complained ‘my eyes were completely going mad’ with the strain of depicting such a degree of detail; he could no longer stand the constriction of painting sitting down. So he stood at the easel, changed his sable brushes for hog-hair ones, and slowly his work began to change.

  *

  As he sought a new direction, Freud was impressed by what Bacon was saying about his own pictures at the time: ‘He talked about packing a lot of things into one single brushstroke, which amused and excited me and I realized was a million miles away from anything I could do.’ When, half a century later, he was asked to revise his statement for Encounter, Freud decided that the only point he wanted to add was about the importance of paint, that painting, after all, was all about paint.

  The problem Freud then set himself, and it was a solitary task, was how to combine this sense of greater gusto and thicker, juicier paint with his own artistic project of depicting the distinct form and texture of each individual subject. It was not an easy one to solve, and the initial results pleased few, even the artist himself: ‘I was very aware of the terrible things I was doing in the process.’ He recounted:

  I had an exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art of paintings I had deliberately made much more free. Afterwards Kenneth Clark wrote a card saying that I had deliberately suppressed everything that made my work remarkable, or something like that, and ended, ‘I admire your courage’. I never saw him again.

  It was after this, in 1959, that Freud was approached by Time magazine to draw a cover illustration of the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman. ‘Francis Bacon advised me, very wisely, to agree only on the understanding that I would be paid whether or not the portrait appeared. I explained that I could work only very slowly and always from people I knew.’ Freud asked for £1,000, then an enormous sum, and the Time representatives replied that they’d never paid anyone that much before and would have to hold a special meeting to discuss it. So Freud settled for a little less and asked whether, if he failed to produce a portrait, he could retain half the fee.

  From the beginning the omens were not good. Bergman, who was notoriously cantankerous and dictatorial, had evidently never heard of Freud – or if he had, he was not impressed. As Freud told it, ‘He kept disappearing to have his girlfriend, who was a very beautiful actress, for which I didn’t blame him at all.’ Freud did, however, resent Bergman telling him to put out a cigarette, instructing him to paint his left profile and – worst of all – not giving him the time he required, continually expressing surprise that the picture was not yet finished.

  Finally Freud put it to Bergman that, since neither of them was enjoying this process, if the director would give him a decent, long sitting over the weekend he would do his best to get the picture done. Bergman responded that he liked to spend Saturday and Sunday mornings in bed with his wife. At this, Freud turned to the Time journalist who had accompanied Bergman and said, ‘I’ve no preconceived idea of how I should be treated, but I know it’s not like this.’ By mutual agreement, they abandoned the project. In retrospect, Freud felt the whole muddle had been his fault: ‘I was in a false position; I did something that is only what a hack does, and I was treated like one.’

  This incident must have been important to Freud, as he described it on several occasions. Perhaps this was because he had learned an important lesson. Never again did he accept any such offer, nor – with the rarest exceptions – paint a commissioned portrait. The path ahead looked dauntingly hard, but he stuck to it for many years until his reputation once again began to rise.

  Chapter eight

  TWO CLIMBERS ROPED TOGETHER

 
I remember the extraordinary effect of Auerbach’s early paintings of Primrose Hill, all in yellow ochre, grooved, engraved, as if in wet gravelly sand: as if one had fallen asleep after long contemplation of some Rembrandt … and then in a dream found oneself actually walking in the landscape.

  Helen Lessore, 1986

  Art history occasionally throws up a couple of painters – such as Monet and Renoir with Impressionism in the 1870s, or Picasso and Braque with Cubism forty years later – who work out a new idiom together. Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach, who as young painters had both attended David Bomberg’s classes at the Borough Polytechnic, had a similar synergetic and symbiotic relationship. Auerbach recalls that time:

  Although I don’t think we were tremendously articulate about laying out our plans, there were fifteen, sixteen years when we went into each other’s studios constantly … I can’t speak for Leon, but I was surprised by what he’d done, he may in turn have been surprised by what I’d done, so there was also that thing, like Picasso said of himself and Braque, of two climbers roped together.

  They were outsiders, thrown together in a devastated city; the excavations for the new buildings that were rising all around became a subject for both of them, and one of their earliest themes. In those paintings the thick, glutinous oil pigment that Kossoff and Auerbach both favoured seems to metamorphose into Thames clay. The pictures give an almost physical sense of a descent into cavernous excavations; of feeling your way around the churned-up chaos of a city half way between wartime destruction and postwar rebuilding. The shattered, half-reconstructed scenes looked, to the young Kossoff, ‘awful but also rather beautiful’; Auerbach agreed: