Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud Paperback – September 9, 2013

British art critic Martin Gayford has written of his posing for the late painter, Lucian Freud, in his book, "Man with a Blue Scarf". Both Gayford's writing and the Freud paintings (as well as others referred to in the text) are brilliant. I found this to be a wonderful introduction both to Freud's work and the actual work on the part of both artist and subject.Lucian Freud died in London in July, 2011, at the age of 88. I knew very little about his work and the little I knew of him was basically that he was a grandson of Sigmund Freud and that he had been married to the writer Caroline Blackwood. While looking into books about Freud, I saw this relatively recently published book by Martin Gayford, telling of his serving as a subject for a Freud portrait. In all, Gayford sat for Freud in his London studio about 16 months as Freud painted his portrait. At the same time Freud was painting Gayford, he had several other on-going portraits he was working on.Well, if Freud could paint, Gayford can write. He compares his own sitting as a subject to the other subjects Freud had worked on over the years. Gayford puts styles to pictures and gives a marvelous overview to Freud's long career. In their sittings, Freud and Gayford spent long hours talking about Freud, his career, his life and loves, and his interests in life. While I assume the conversations were two-sided, Gayford recounts the gist of the conversations from Freud's view. And while comparing Freud's work to others, both past and present, who have influenced Freud, the book usually includes pictures of the paintings being written about.Martin Gayford has written not so much an art book, but more a "memoir" of Lucian Freud and these 16 months spent by artist and subject. It's a marvelous book. (As is the finished portrait, which did not go to Gayford, but rather into a collection of a California couple. Evidently, the subject only poses; the finished painting goes elsewhere.)

Highly recommend! I really enjoyed this book! It's such an interesting and different point of view. If you love reading about art, if you are interested in Lucien Freud, and if you are interested in the process of making art and what it takes to be a great artist, you should read this book. The quality of the book is also superb! The art work is printed in good color and detail, and everything the author is referring to, every art work, even if it's not by Lucien Freud, is included in the book, the page numbers are given, and the art work is located usually right next to the text or on the next page. Go and get this book, you will enjoy it!

I enjoyed this book very much -- probably because it combined two of my interests -- I am an artist and I love biographies. The reason I gave this book four instead of five stars is that I think it probably doesn't have wide appeal. It is simply reflections on the life and painting from a noteworthy critic and an extremely talented painter. Freud's little eccentricities add a bit of flavor to the mix.

This is a fabulous book whether you like Freud's work or not. ( I don't). But I could not stop reading it. The book is so beautifully written, the language such a pleasure, and it is fascinating to learn about Freud's painting style, and about all the thoughts swirling through the model's mind before, during, and after. I imagine that Anybody with the slightest interest in art, art history or culture in general, would enjoy this book.

I hated to see this book end. It felt like I was part of a thoughtful conversation, and I returned to the pages as eagerly as Gayford returned for his appointments with the artist. The sense of Freud's 81 years filled with painting three subjects in a day filled me with hope that I too might retain energy late in life. The observations about work habits, birthday parties, dinners, and the pace of modern life offered insight into one of today's great painters who strives to please no one but himself. The writing was beautifully done, graceful, incisive, and every page pleased. I recommend it most highly!

The title suggests that this book could quite easily have been about the artists sitter, writer Martin Gayford, not Lucian Freud, the artist. However, Martin Gayford is far too good a writer to fall into that trap, and delivers the most fascinating, intelligent and informative book about the challenging art of portraiture, as executed by a genius artist. The reader morphs into the sitter, as Freud dabs, chats, mumbles, stares intensely.....month, after month, after month. This is a classic case of the journey being the destination, and what a brilliant journey it is.Now I want to see the portrait.

A valuable and enjoyable insight to the work of Lucian Freud. While the book is in no sense a biography, it conveys an image of the artist and his times much as "Count no'Count: Flashbacks to Faulkner" did for William Faulkner. It is a snapshot that tells more in some ways than could a movie. Blue Scarf is particularly interesting just after reading an insightful biography of his friend Francis Bacon.

Interesting tale of the making of a painting and the life of a painter. I found the writing to be compelling enough to keep you reading an otherwise short story. I am an artist, so to read the process of someone like Freud was fun. It is a good enough story that even if you are not an art fan you would find it interesting!

As with other reviewers, I agree that this is a very good book; simply as a book to read - sort of biographical, as research or insight into the work of a great artist. It is, actually, something of a double portrait, with a remarkable exposition of the thoughts and workings of Lucien Freud and the engagement of his sitter, Martin Gayford, the writer of the book. Conversations with Lucien Freud about his long life and experiences, his views on art, Life, food and the extensive list of artists he knows and has known, is interesting and instructive; the book never flags or ceases to be interesting. Underlying all of this is the subject of painted portraiture, something that is beginning to re-emerge from long obscurity during the century of modernism and post modernism and the last remaining outpost of difficult art that is done by artists. Freud, himself states that he enters every painting not knowing where it will lead, if it will be successful. In this respect, the book is the best disquisition I have read on the subject and nailing, once an for all, the idea that portraiture is about verisimimilute of likeness as about character and quality of the painting. Picasso once remarked that in a hundred years no-one will care if a portrait looked like the person - as in this case, a good painting that bears a resemblance to the sitter without being a photographic likeness. Freud's sittings take place over months or even years as the painter and sitter develop a relationship with one another that forms a sort of intimacy helping the portrait to develop and grow, if you like, into a character of its own: Freud insists that the subject is just the starting point. Anyone interested in portraiture and, indeed, Freud's work, will find this book fascinating - even "unputdownable," absolutely 5 stars.

What a marvellous book! Critic, writer and curator Martin Gayford gives an extraordinaryaccount of sitting for a portrait by Lucian Freud. Intimate, intelligent and enlightening; asfar as biography goes it’s up there with James Lord’s equally insightful chronicle of beingpainted by the impassioned Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (‘A Giacometti Portrait’, 1965).The multiple sittings over months reveal a great deal about Freud’s fastidious workingmethod; their conversations a great deal more about a man who never gave much away.Mr Gayford’s book creates a refreshing balance with Mail On Sunday editor Geordie Grieg’sdecidedly sordid 2015 warts-and-all “portrait” of the artist, ‘Breakfeast With Lucien’, whichseemed to me to have been contaminated by the author’s sycophancy and appetite for scandal.Highly Recommended.

One of my friends - an Art Historian - thinks Freud is an old phoney and that he's done nothing of interest for thirty years. If you're of her persuasion you may not enjoy this book. But then she thinks Tracey Emin is an "interesting" Artist, so you can judge for yourself what her opinion on Freud is worth. Personally I loved this book. I try to paint portraits myself - my first effort was 45 years ago, of a girl I was trying desperately to impress - and I know how a tiny speck of paint (in the wrong or the right place) can make or mar a portrait, so the time Freud takes to complete Martin Gayford's likeness is not as surprising to me as it apparently was to the sitter. But the sheer number of sittings over such a stretch of time allows a detailed account of Freud's working methods, and of his opinions and his life - in anecdotes.What I find most interesting is the way in which Freud has moved from being a member of some sort of Brtish Avant-Garde in the fifties (friendship with Francis Bacon and so on) to being an almost traditional painter who is grappling with the formal problems of putting paint on canvas in a way which would have been quite familiar to Sickert or Manet or even Turner.The book as an object is very pleasing. The dust-jacket is attractive with a small reproducton of the finished portrait on the front, the book itself beautifully produced with illustrations in the appropriate place within the text. It feels as if it was laid out by someone who really cared. At the (Amazon) price it's amazing.

A great copy and, for me, an absolutely absorbing read. I bought it after having seen the Exhibition On Screen film about Freud's Self-Portraits and I became completely immersed in the book from start to finish, in both the subject matter and Martin Gayford's measured style of writing The colour photographs were an unexpected bonus. Definitely one to keep on the shelf for another read.

I ordered this on a bit of a whim after seeing the book in the Royal Academy gift shop (after seeing the Hockney exhibition - another of Martin Gayford's favourite artists), based solely on the lovely cover. It has completely engaged me for the last two days solid - the true definition of 'un-put-down-able' if ever a book was. Gayford's writing is beautiful and easy to read, offering an engaging and often humorous insight into Freud's work, methods and personality, with some fascinating conversations about the history of art and other great artists thrown in for good measure. There was not a paragraph wasted, with each insight revealing another of Freud's quirks, or thoughts, or a piece of art history that only an historian like Gayford could put forward. I learnt a lot, smiled often, laughed out loud on occasion and fell in love with Freud all over again. Highly recommended!