Lucian Freud

The artist
Acquired directly from the above and thence by descent to the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is very slightly deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The edges of the sheet are deckled and it is laid down and adhered to a supporting sheet of rice paper. There are artist's pin holes to the bottom corners with an associated and very minor loss to the extreme tip of the bottom right corner. Close examination under raking light reveals an extremely faint, thin and short hairline rubmark towards the centre of the top edge, one or two minute spots of foxing towards the upper right edge and a very small area of minor restoration towards the centre of the upper right quadrant.
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Residing in the same private collection since it was acquired from the artist and never before exhibited in public or in reproduction, the present work is a major revelation of Lucian Freud's simply remarkable aptitude as one of the Twentieth Century's most gifted draughtsman. In more than six decades following the execution of this drawing Freud charted a course as one of the leading figurative artists of our times, and with hindsight it is perhaps possible to trace the venerable tracts of his subsequent canon to the crucial early development of draughtsmanship that would always underpin his art. Belonging to the career-defining period surrounding Freud's very first exhibition in the winter of 1944, the breathtaking observational analysis of Interior Drawing, The Owl, executed in the following March, is a consummate example of the razor-sharp economy of line and frank aesthetic from which Freud's inimitably uncompromising painting of the human form would later develop. Indeed, according to Timothy Clifford, "It is clear that by 1945 Freud had found his own individual voice: tough, direct, unsettling" (Exhibition Catalogue: Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Early Works: Lucian Freud, 1997, p. 7).  Evocative of this idiosyncratic candour, Freud's remarkably intricate depiction of a taxidermied owl seated on a kitchen chair possesses a graphic starkness and intensity of empirical observation unique to the artist's virtuoso draughtsmanship. The beautiful detailing of feather patternation and the exceptionally elaborate woven chair seat are compositionally structured within a measured and ascetic linear framework. Calmly restrained yet simultaneously scrutinising, areas of heavy cross-hatching and concentrated detail are counterbalanced by Freud's compositional resolve and restraint. Indeed, by no means a preparatory sketch and not in the least subordinate to Freud's contemporaneous painting, the early graphic works represent a wholly independent discipline – if not the principal concern – for Freud throughout the crucially formative 1940s.

By his own account, Freud maintained a profound fondness for animals, and particularly birds, from an early age: "I was always excited by birds.  If you touch wild birds it's a marvellous feeling." (the artist cited in: William Feaver, 'Lucian Freud: Life into Art', in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Britain, Lucian Freud, 2002, p. 23). As a boy Freud had drawn bird-people and famously kept two sparrow hawks in his Paddington studio.  Allied to the interrelation of Freud's biography and artistic practice, the abundance of bird imagery during the 1940s denotes a pronounced fascination: "a painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what is suitable for him to do in art". (Lucian Freud, 'Some thoughts on painting', Encounter, July 1954, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 23-24).  Pointedly evident in the present drawing, and with a dedication equal to that of his human subjects, birds and animals are treated to the same penetrating and psychological scrutiny. 

Although known to have studied live animals at London Zoo, cadavers and taxidermy constitute the mainstay of Freud's animal subjects. Akin to his sleeping girls and reclining boys, these entities were chosen for their deathly inertia.  Freud procured dead monkeys from Palmers Pet Stores in Camden, while the stuffed animals, including the famous zebra head and the present owl, were "bought for him at Rowland Ward's, the taxidermists, by his married girlfriend Lorna Wishart" (William Feaver, Lucian Freud, New York 2007, p. 16).  Aunt to Kitty Garman, the daughter of Jacob Epstein and Freud's future wife, Wishart also bought him objects from her country home, among them the impressively emblematic dead heron of Freud's 1945 painting.   Indeed, in also pervading his illustrations for Nicholas Moore's anthology of poems, The Glass Tower published in 1944, birds come to represent a veritable trademark during these early years.  With perfect linear clarity and precise repetitive hatching akin to the deliberate quality of etching (Freud owned a book of animal engravings at the time of this work's creation), Interior Drawing, The Owl epitomizes the prodigious skill and assuredness of execution that prompted Freud to admit: "I very much prided myself in my drawing." (the artist cited in: Richard Calvocoressi, 'The Graphics of Lucian Freud, in: Lucian Freud: On Paper, London, 2008, p. 19).