Losing Lucian

Losing Lucian: Dead Dad - Paintings from Lucian Freud's Death Bed, by David Freud, at the Meller Merceux gallery in Oxford.

We stumbled upon this fairly new gallery purely by chance and what drew us inside was this picture in the window.

It is part of the 'Stone Impressions'  series: using stones collected from beaches near his home in West Sussex, David Freud impresses textured reliefs into card and canvas panels by striking them by hand and with a mediating hammer.

In some cases the card is placed on tar macadam or a jetty, such that it picks up shards of bitumen or the contours of the wood grain.

The tools for the Stone Impressions.

There were also other works in oils, watercolours and ink.

While growing up David Freud had no contact with his father. It was only when he grew up that he gradually made attempts at getting in touch - even after contact had been made, communication remained sporadic and connection with Lucian unstable. It was only after his father's death that many of the complex emotions surrounding his family situation, both positive and negative became prominent.