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Hello my name is Julie I live in Birmingham I like it there.[1] I like peaches.


Lucian Freud (1922-2011) Portrait of Kitty 1948-9, oil on board, 35 x 24cm

Portrait of Kitty is a painting by Lucian Freud.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was married to Kitty Garman (1926-2011) between 1948 and 1952, and the couple had two daughters together, Annie (b.1948) and Annabel (b.1952).


Kitty Garman

Kitty was the eldest daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein and his lover Kathleen Garman. Epstein and Garman were together for thirty years before they married in 1955, after the death of Epstein's first wife Margaret.

Kitty has been the subject of many portraits, including Freud's famous Girl with a White Dog[2] as well as drawings and sculptures by her father. More recently she was depicted in a BP Portrait Award winning triptych by the artist Andrew Tift.[3]

Relationship with Lucian Freud

Previously Freud had been the lover of Kitty's aunt, Lorna Wishart, Kathleen's sister, who introduced him to her niece. Their five year relationship was turbulent, and became increasingly unstable due to Freud's alleged infidelities and womanising, which took its toll on Kitty's health. In 1952 Kitty left Freud and went to live with her parents, Freud having started at an affair with Lady Caroline Blackwood. In 1955 Kitty married the economist and musician Wynne Godley, having another daughter, Eve, with him in 1967.

Portrait

Freud was known for his intense scrutiny of his subjects, revealing the intimate relationship between artist and sitter. Portrait of Kitty was painted when the couple were on honeymoon in France/was one of several of his early works in which she acted as a model, and these are now generally regarded as some of his masterpieces.[4] Kitty was known for her wide-eyed feline features which captivated the artist at the time, becoming his frequent model during the early years of their relationship. [5] Normally Freud does not give names to his sitters, and usually in portraits she was only referred to as girl, this one being an exception.

The profile format emphasises Freud's objective approach to portraiture, in which the sitter is scrutinised by both artist and viewer in a cold light against a characteristically bare background. The detail of hair and surface is typical of the meticulous style of his early portraits, and the peeling paint of the shutters reveals his intention to depict the world with all its imperfections, bereft of symbolism or flattery. [5]

Portrait of Kitty is in the Garman Ryan Collection at the New Art Gallery Walsall. This collection was gifted to Walsall in 1973, as Kathleen Garman had been brought up just outside the town. Kathleen Garman purchased several works by her son in law which feature in the Collection. Kitty continued to paint and draw throughout her life and took an active interest in the gallery until she passed away in 2011.[6]

References

  1. ^ Brown, J (2013). Birmingham Now.
  2. ^ "Girl with a White Dog 1950-1".
  3. ^ "BP Portrait Award 2006". Retrieved 2 May 2013.
  4. ^ Extraordinary People, Portraits in the Garman Ryan Collection. The New Art Gallery Walsall. 2009. p. 26.
  5. ^ a b McGregor, Sheila (1999). A Shared Vision, The Garman Ryan Collection at The New Art Gallery Walsall. Merrell. p. 75. ISBN 1858941016.
  6. ^ Extraordinary People, Portraits in the Garman Ryan Collection. The New Art Gallery Walsall. 2009. ISBN 0946652937.
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