“A photograph that deals with the real world but at the same time seeks to free itself of it.” – Irving Penn, unpublished note, about 2007 Ivy Sanders Schneider- A disembodied gray head with bright red lips, floating in a field of cracked green decorates the cover of Irving Penn: Beyond
Jane Block— When I was first drawn to the subject of the Neo-Impressionist portrait over twenty-five years ago, I soon realized that part of the appeal was due to the wonderful complexity of the theme. Robert Herbert’s ground-breaking exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1968 first examined the
Follow @yaleARTbooks Painter Lucian Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud, died on this day one year ago, and it is on this anniversary that we reflect on the English artist’s extraordinary legacy. Perhaps best-known for his nude portraits, Freud perfected his style of portraiture during a period in the history of
The people portrayed in Lucian Freud’s portraits are not passive, flawless models, stuck in the imagined world of a framed canvas. They have lived—endured—with evidence of years past in their rough, wrinkled, worn, and scarred skin. Like his psychoanalyst grandfather Sigmund Freud, Lucian Freud explores his subjects’ inner troubles and