Martin Gayford on sitting for a portrait by Lucian Freud, at 5x15

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Martin Gayford on sitting for a portrait by Lucian Freud, at 5x15

07 Mar 2011

Speakers: Martin Gayford

“What are you thinking about?” Martin Gayford asked Lucian Freud, who had become rather quiet.

“Your ear,” Freud responded. The two were at dinner one evening after Gayford had been sitting for his portrait, a portrait which would take many months, and many dinners, to complete. Dinner was Freud’s way of observing his sitters at ease. Unlike his contemporary, Francis Bacon, Freud worked slowly, and only ever from live observation. A portrait by Freud would entail hours and hours in his company, and the “layers of time” are visible in the final portraits. Gayford, a friend of Freud’s, asked him to paint his portrait because he felt that it might offer “an assertion that one exists.” After a month of sittings, Gayford’s wife was able to have a look at the developing portrait. She said: “I can see the likeness” - which both worried and astonished Gayford because Freud’s canvas was still bare apart from a pair of eyes and eyebrows.