The National Portrait Gallery in London has opened a major exhibition dedicated to Lucian Freud's works on paper, featuring 170 drawings, etchings, and paintings. The show, drawing heavily from the Lucian Freud Archive acquired by the gallery after the artist's death, includes 48 sketchbooks, unfinished works, and childhood drawings, alongside 12 new acquisitions from the estate.
The exhibition challenges the long-held belief that Freud abandoned drawing in the 1950s, revealing instead that it remained a private, constant activity throughout his life. It demonstrates how drawing was central to his artistic process, serving as a means of observation, idea development, and biographical record, and traces the evolution of his style in parallel with his paintings.