Auction details
10:00 AM PT - May 21st, 2008
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LUCIAN FREUD, b. 1922
Bella in her Pluto T-shirt, 1995 Etching on wove paper, with full margins, I. 26 ¾ x 23 7#8540; in. (67.9 x 59.4 cm).; P. 32 x 28 ¼ in. (81.3 x 71.8 cm). Signed with initials and numbered 4/36 in pencil (there were also 12 artist's proofs), published by Matthew Marks, New York, in excellent condition, framed. LITERATURE Craig Hartley 51 Perhaps the most accomplished of Freud's portraits of women is Bella in her Pluto T-Shirt (1995; plate 53) [his daughter], which is extraordinary in the level of detail that has gone into describing various surfaces and textures, from the long parallel lines of her trousers to the thick, choppy lines of the wicker chair, the dense, allover hatching that covers the background, which reflects Freud's newfound confidence in his ability to control its relationship to the foreground subject. The moiré-like effect in this area causes the entire image to seem as if it is flickering, or even breathing. Freud sometimes talks about being "very conscious of the air going around people in different ways, to do with their particular vitality," and in this work we have a sense of what he means. Bella in her Pluto T-Shirt is also remarkable in that it is one of only a few of Freud's etchings that have progressed through more than one state. In the face, the final version involved completely undoing an area of the plate after it had already been etched. After the first state was proofed, Freud was not satisfied with the face. He had it burnished out of the copper plate, and then redid it entirely. After a proof of the second state was pulled, he was still not satisfied and went through the process of burnishing and redrawing again. The third state at last was acceptable and an edition of thirty-six prints was pulled. This process, unusual for Freud (though not necessarily for other printmakers), nevertheless corresponds to a tendency the artist has in painting: he often works on the head of a new model first as a way of getting acquainted, then redoes it after he has come to know the person better. ImagesClick on thumbnails to see larger images: 
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