The first major Italian one-man show devoted to Lucian Freud, the English artist of German origin, in Venice.
Over 80 works, some created especially for this exhibition. “An obsession with the subject is the only impulse necessary for a painter to start working.” This is creativity according to Lucian Freud, a painstaking, reserved artist so far removed from these times dominated by the image and mass media obsessed with creating idols. Since his first exhibition in Venice fifty years ago, Lucian Freud’s fame has skyrocketed: the achievements of his artistic career were richly documented in the major retrospective mounted by the Tate in London in 2002, and never before was an exhibition featuring a contemporary artist so highly acclaimed by the public. Seventy-five paintings and ten engravings focusing on Lucian Freud’s main source of inspiration: research into the uniqueness of the individual and into detail. The exhibition was organized by the Musei Civici Veneziani in association with the British Council, within the ambit of the Biennale Arti Visive 2005.
Venice, june-july 2005