British artist Lucian Freud died at 88 last year (21-07-2011)

The original, unnerving, sustained artistic achievement of Lucian Freud, who has died aged 88, had at its heart a wilful, restless personality, fired by his intelligence and attentiveness and his suspicion of method, never wanting to risk doing the same thing twice. The sexually loaded, penetrating gaze was part of his weaponry, but his art addressed the lives of individuals, whether life models or royalty, with delicacy and disturbing corporeality.

Freud had a reputation for pushing subjects to an extreme. But unlike the American painters to emerge in the 1950s, his approach was in the western tradition of working from life and brought about with painstaking slowness, rather than unleashed virtuosity. Photographs taken in the studio by his assistant, model and good friend, the painter David Dawson, show Freud working from a roughly sketched charcoal form, the paint slowly spreading outwards from the head. Some canvases were extended, others abandoned while still a fragment.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jul/21/lucien-lucian-freud-obituary

Lucian Freud with Martin Gayford in 2010. Photograph: David Dawson

Lucian Freud, considered one of Britain's most pre-eminent realist painters, has died at age 88, his dealer says.

Freud died Wednesday night at his home in London after a brief illness, said William Acquavella, owner of Acquavella Galleries in New York. He referred to Freud as "one of the great artists of the 20th century."

"He lived to paint and painted until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world," Acquavella said.

Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was known for his portraits of human figures, especially his nudes.

Among his famous works are Girl With a White Dog, a portrait of his first wife that hangs in the Tate Gallery in London, and a 2001 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that was controversial because it was not beautiful.He painted regular people, often family members and friends, sometimes with their pets, layering thick gobs of paint on the canvas to convey fleshy curves.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/07/21/lucian-freud-obit.html