A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.
Lucian Freud

A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.
Lucian Freud

And, since the model he 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.
Lucian Freud

As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.
Lucian Freud

Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.
Lucian Freud

I am only interested in painting the actual person, in doing a painting of them, not in using them to some ulterior end of art. For me, to use someone doing something not native to them would be wrong.
Lucian Freud

I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.
Lucian Freud

I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.
Lucian Freud

I want paint to work as flesh.
Lucian Freud

I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.
Lucian Freud


My work is purely autobiographical... It is about myself and my surroundings.
Lucian Freud

Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much.
Lucian Freud

Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.
Lucian Freud

Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.
Lucian Freud

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.
Lucian Freud

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.
Lucian Freud

The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.
Lucian Freud

The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement.
Lucian Freud

The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.
Lucian Freud

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.
Lucian Freud