William Feaver – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATOR‘A compendium of high-grade gossip about everyone from Princess Margaret to the Krays, a snapshot of grimy London and a narrative of Freud’s career and rackety life and loves … Leaves the reader itching for more’ SUNDAY TIMES, ART BOOK OF THE YEARThough ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver – about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves. The result is this a unique, electrifying biography.In Youth, Feaver conjures Freud’s early childhood: Sigmund Freud’s grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934. Following Freud through art school, his time in the Navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho – consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret – Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man’s coming of age.‘Brilliant … Freud would have approved’ DAILY TELEGRAPH‘Superlative … packed with stories’ GUARDIAN'Anyone interested in British art needs it' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZECHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, MAIL ON SUNDAY, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATORTHE SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020'Explosively enjoyable, bursting with life and art ... A central figure as wild and beguiling as any character in literature' CRAIG BROWN William Feaver, Lucian Freud’s collaborator, curator and close friend, knew the unknowable artist better than most. Over many years, Freud narrated to him the story of his life, ‘our novel’.Fame follows Freud at the height of his powers, painting the most iconic works of his career in a constant pursuit of perfection, just outrunning his gambling debts and tailor’s bills. Whether tattooing swallows at the base of Kate Moss’s back or exacting a strange revenge on Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger, Freud’s adventures were always perfectly characteristic. An enfant terrible till the end, even as he was commissioned to paint the Queen, what emerges is an artist wilfully oblivious to the glitter of the world around – and focussed instead on painting first and last.‘A dazzling tour de force’ THE TIMES'A wonderfully vivid chronicle' OBSERVER‘Does justice to Freud’s pitiless genius’ DAILY MAIL

This is the most comprehensive publication to date, and the only book in print, on the work of Frank Auerbach, a painter who has become one of the pre-eminent artists of our age, widely admired for his vivid, impulsive depictions of the world around him. His is, ostensibly, a narrow world, a small area of north London where he has lived and worked for more than fifty years, but within it he achieves images of marvelous poignancy and feel. "I’m hoping," Auerbach has said, "to make a new thing for the world that remains in the mind like a new species of living thing." Auerbach, who was born in Berlin in 1931 and came to Britain when he was eight, repeatedly paints people he knows well and places he is familiar with. His drawings and paintings are strikingly immediate; their impact has urgency; they relate in various ways as much to certain preferred Old Masters as to the contemporary artists with whom he tends to be associated, notably Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. The book includes 200 color plates together with a separate reference section comprising around 900 images—Auerbach’s complete works to date—many of them not previously reproduced. Writer and art historian William Feaver discusses Auerbach’s work both in its immediate context and in relation to the great tradition of painting. Extensive conversations with the artist are also included.

This volume, with more than 400 reproductions, will be the most comprehensive publication to date on Lucian Freud, covering a span of seventy years and including many works not previously reproduced. The result is a corpus of great works that reveal him to be the premier heir today of Rembrandt, Courbet, and Cézanne. The book includes not only Freud’s paintings but also his sketches, woodcuts, and powerful etchings. While the bulk of his paintings are female nudes, his cityscapes, plant studies, and interiors, executed in his distinctive muted palette and visible brushwork, are all included. Freud, who has lived in London ever since his family left Berlin in 1933 when he was ten, has achieved preeminence through his ruthless perception of the human form. His importance has long been recognized in England, but his present super-celebrity status dates from a retrospective at the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C., in 1987. William Feaver, painter and for many years art critic for The Observer, provides a unique account of Freud’s preoccupations and achievement. Startling, moving, profoundly entertaining, the book lives up to Freud’s advice to students when getting them to paint self-portraits: “To try and make it the most revealing, telling, and believable object. Something really shameless, you know.”

SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATORSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019‘This exceptional book is far from standard biography … A compendium of high-grade gossip about everyone from Princess Margaret to the Krays, a tour of the immediate post-war art world, a snapshot of grimy London and a narrative of Freud’s career and rackety life and loves … Leaves the reader itchy for volume two’ SUNDAY TIMES, ART BOOK OF THE YEAR‘Brilliant … Freud would have approved’ DAILY TELEGRAPH‘Sparkling’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Superlative … packed with stories’ GUARDIAN‘Brilliant and compendious ... It does justice to Lucian’ FRANK AUERBACH'A tremendous read. Anyone interested in British art needs it' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMANThough ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver – about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves. The result is this a unique, electrifying biography, shot through with Freud’s own words.In Youth, the first of two volumes, Feaver conjures Freud’s early childhood: Sigmund Freud’s grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 before being dropped into successive English public schools. Following Freud through art school, his time in the Navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho – consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret – Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man’s coming of age.An account of a century told through one of its most important artists, The Lives of Lucian Freud is a landmark in the story its subject and in the art of biography itself.

SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATORSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019''This exceptional book is far from standard biography … A compendium of high-grade gossip about everyone from Princess Margaret to the Krays, a tour of the immediate post-war art world, a snapshot of grimy London and a narrative of Freud''s career and rackety life and loves … Leaves the reader itchy for volume two'' SUNDAY TIMES, ART BOOK OF THE YEAR''Brilliant … Freud would have approved'' DAILY TELEGRAPH ''Sparkling'' SUNDAY TIMES ''Superlative … packed with stories'' GUARDIAN''Brilliant and compendious ... It does justice to Lucian'' FRANK AUERBACH''A tremendous read. Anyone interested in British art needs it'' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMANThough ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver – about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves. The result is this a unique, electrifying biography, shot through with Freud''s own words.In Youth, the first of two volumes, Feaver conjures Freud''s early childhood: Sigmund Freud''s grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 before being dropped into successive English public schools. Following Freud through art school, his time in the Navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho – consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret – Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man''s coming of age.An account of a century told through one of its most important artists, The Lives of Lucian Freud is a landmark in the story its subject and in the art of biography itself.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZECHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, MAIL ON SUNDAY, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATORTHE SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 ''A dazzling tour de force'' THE TIMES ''Does justice to Freud''s pitiless genius as an artist'' DAILY MAIL ''You can hear Freud''s voice on the page'' OBSERVER ''Mesmerising … the ideal companion to Freud''s work'' GUARDIANWilliam Feaver, Lucian Freud''s collaborator, curator and close friend, knew the unknowable artist better than most. Over many years, Freud narrated to him the story of his life, ''our novel''.Fame follows Freud at the height of his powers, painting the most iconic works of his career in a constant and dissatisfied pursuit of perfection, just outrunning his gambling debts and tailor''s bills. Whether tattooing swallows at the base of Kate Moss''s back or exacting a strange and horrible revenge on Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger, Freud''s adventures were always perfectly characteristic. An enfant terrible till the end, even as he was commissioned to paint the Queen and attended his own retrospectives, what emerges is an artist wilfully oblivious to the glitter of the world around – and focussed instead on painting first and last.