Lucian Freud: A Not So Still Life, Luxembourg & Dayan

A Not So Still Life- a new selling exhibition at Savile Row's Luxembourg and Dayan gallery - is your chance to see two significant later works by painter Lucian Freud next to four works by 20th Century artists including Otto Dix, Marcel Duchamp, Max Beckmann and Eugen Knaus. This show of eminent juxtapositions aims to provoke discussion about, and examine responses to, the work of this master of the human form.

Forming the centrepiece of the show are Freud's ‘Naked Portrait in a Red Chair’ (1999), a portrait of an unnamed model, and 'David and Eli' (2003-4), depicting Freud’s studio assistant and confidante of 20 years, David Dawson - and his dog. 

In ‘Naked Portrait in a Red Chair’ Freud confronts us with an ageing female subject painted in startlingly frank detail and bearing the slightly disconcerted, vulnerable look of someone being acutely scrutinised. It's undeniably provocative in its up front, anatomical detail.

Taking their place alongside it are Marcel Duchamp’s 1951 sculpture ‘Feuille de Vigne Femelle’ (Female Fig Leaf) and Otto Dix’s ‘Bildnis Jankel Adler’ (Portrait of Jankel Adler). Dix’s portrait of a clothed man is similarly striking, bearing the hallmarks of his starkly realistic Neue Sachlichkeit affinities. Marcel Duchamp, well known for the erotic content of his work, would never explain the manufacturing process behind this sculpture - and although the title suggests modesty, it is actually thought to represent a cast of female genitalia.

In David and Eli we get a greater sense of the relationship between the artist and his subject - but also that between man and dog (a familiar motif throughout Freud’s work.)  Whilst Dix declared of his subjects ‘You know if one paints someone’s portrait, one should not know him if possible. No knowledge! I do not want to know him at all’, Freud spent approximately 12 years getting to know his assistant Dawson before declaring that he was ‘ready’ to paint him. 

Alongside David and Eli is the painting ‘Hunde’ (Dogs) by Beckmann (another Neue Sachlichkeit-er), which mirrors the canine leanings of Freud’s painting, and Gummibaum (1930) by Eugen Knaus, which depicts two rubber plants. One plant, in the foreground, stands upright, vigorous and healthy, while another languishes in the background, apologetic and wilted. An interesting choice - drawing to mind as it does  Freud’s recurring themes of realism and decay - and his penchant for painting not very healthy plant specimens!

Sparse in presentation but rich in content, this exhibition will be thought provoking on many levels. It's a great opportunity to get intimately acquainted with two of Freud's masterworks, plus a wealth of other twentieth century beauties, but at the same time learn through these intriguing juxtapositions about Freud's artistic preoccupations. In doing so, we might just get a little better acquainted with the man himself.