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Interview: David Dawson

Uncovered: my life as Lucian Freud’s model

October 10, 2008 12:51
lucien

By

Julia Weiner ,

Julia Weiner

4 min read

British art's grand old man never gives interviews, but here his assistant reveals how he works, and what he thinks of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.


Lucian Freud is regularly described as the world's greatest living painter. Now that a new exhibition has just opened in London focusing on his early works, public interest is again high. Yet Freud, as ever, is reluctant to engage with the media.

But one man who will cast light on his working processes is the exhibition's curator, David Dawson, who knows the notoriously interview-shy artist better than most. He has been working as Freud's studio assistant since 1991, and regularly models for him. "I was offered a job with James Kirkland, who was Lucian's dealer at the time," Dawson explains. "I met Lucian and we got on immediately, and it just evolved that I should go and help him. We developed a nice friendship and that is how it all started."

A typical day working with Freud begins at 7.45am. "Every morning, first thing, I run to Lucian and set up the studio. I get the easel out, as well as whatever models are sitting on or lying on, and I put them in the right position. Models come in at 8.30am and then I leave. I am never in the studio when Lucian is painting unless I am sitting myself. It is always a very private space and the studio doors are always closed. So if there is nothing else needed, I can go home and paint [myself]."

He usually returns in the evening to sort things out for the evening sitting or sometimes to act as model himself.