The legendary figure of the younger generation: Lucian Freud’s critical reception

Critical responses to Lucian Freud’s work varied enormously over his lifetime, ranging from the early favour he received within cultural circles up until the 1950s, to comparative neglect in later decades, to his eventual return, by the end of the twentieth century, to a position of assured centrality. This talk excavates the newspaper and magazine reviews and responses to Freud’s work over time, charting how his reputation was cultivated, and contextualised, through the lens of transatlantic contemporary art journalism.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Nathan O’Donnell is an IRC Enterprise Postdoctoral Research Fellow, based between IMMA & TRIARC, as part of the IMMA Collection Freud Project. He is also one of the co-editors of Paper Visual Art Journal, and his first book, on Wyndham Lewis’s art criticism, is forthcoming from Liverpool University Press.