>> JARED BOWEN: British painter
Lucian Freud was famous
for how he labored
over his portraits,
putting his models through
grueling, endless hours
of awkward poses
and examination.
It was equal-opportunity
scrutiny, though.
He was just as exacting
when it came to his own
70 years of self—portraits.
A note to our viewers,
the exhibition
we're about to show you
is at the Museum of Fine Arts,
which is currently closed
due to coronavirus concerns,
and we taped our story
before the MFA shut down.
Here we find the painter
Lucian Freud at the beginning,
the end,
and everything in between.
>> He didn't really talk about
his work and his influences.
So, to find him
looking at himself
and revealing himself
in this way
throughout the entirety
of his career
is really quite, quite special.
>> BOWEN: When he died in 2011,
Freud was one of the most famous
painters England had ever seen.
He was a reticent public figure
with a storied private life,
including at least 14 children.
Artistically, his pride
was in portraiture,
one of the most famous
being this 2001 painting
of Queen Elizabeth.
>> He didn't necessarily
have the time
that he might have had with
the majority of his sitters.
It's incredibly small
and incredibly intense
and has this wonderful sense
of, of worked-up-ness about it.
>> BOWEN: By all accounts, Freud
labored over his paintings--
spending 80 hours
in some cases--
in a process that spanned
months, if not years,
says Andrea Tarsia of
London's Royal Academy of Arts.
He is the curator
of this first-ever
Freud self-portrait show
at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
>> He would look
and look and look,
mix a number of paints,
and then perhaps the result of a
sort of 20-minute, half-an-hour,
period of, of observation might
result in just one brush stroke.
>> BOWEN:
The exhibition features
some 70 years
of Freud looking at himself,
from the sketches of a teenager
and his first painterly efforts
to the final renderings of a man
who once said he wanted
to paint himself to death.
>> He's using a variety
of different colors
that aren't really
about realism,
they're not about capturing skin
exactly as it is,
but rather conveying a sense
and a quality of it.
And I think something else
that's really interesting
about this painting
is how important eyes are.
>> It's always amazing
when you get to meet an artist
through their work.
>> BOWEN: Akili Tommasino
is an associate curator
at the MFA.
He says Freud turned
to the proverbial selfie
to mark significant moments
in his life,
like big birthdays or marriage--
which was as complicated
as it looks here.
>> He looked at himself
in a very glancing
and sometimes even
suspicious way.
His primary tool in rendering
his own image were mirrors.
Freud will present himself
partially cropped
or from unconventional angles
that he would place
the mirrors around the studio.
>> BOWEN:
It's interesting to consider
what and how deeply Freud saw.
In case you're wondering,
there is a connection
to the other Freud.
Sigmund was his grandfather.
>> Whenever critics tried
to describe his work
in terms of psychology
and psychological insight,
he would always say,
"No, no, no, no.
"This isn't what
I'm really interested in.
"What I'm interested in is
conveying a sense of presence,
"the physical presence,
and, and using paint
as an equivalent for flesh."
>> BOWEN: Freud loved
flesh and nakedness.
>> He hated the word nude.
He always used the word naked.
They were naked portraits.
And for him, really,
it was about
getting closer to the person.
It was about losing the layers
within which we, we mask
ourselves to a certain extent.
>> BOWEN:
Freud is in the flesh here
even when you think he isn't--
planted in the background,
looming as a shadow,
or discreetly propped
against a skirting board.
>> One of the stories
that goes with the painting is,
the father said,
"Whatever you do,
"don't remove that hand
from behind your back,
or we'll be here
for another six months."
>> BOWEN: All of this,
the show's curators say,
is a rarity.
Few artists have faced off
against themselves so often.
Van Gogh is famed
for his self-portraits,
but they were painted
in a limited timeframe.
One absolute portrait precedent,
and an artist Freud himself
acknowledged,
was Rembrandt.
He channeled the Dutch artist
in this early drawing.
>> It's a very simple
graphic drawing,
it looks like
there's almost nothing there,
but it really has
this tremendous power
that sucks you
right across the room,
and you see him
with his head tilted back
and his mouth slightly open.
It's a drawing
that really recalls
a series of etchings that
Rembrandt made in the 1540s,
where he's also
depicting himself
in a variety
of different expressions.
>> BOWEN: Self-expression
is the theme here,
in these portraits of an artist
as an evolving man.
