Lucian Freud

“Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it's a chair.”

“The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.”

“What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.”

“I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.”

“I want the paint to work as flesh does.”

“The painting is always done very much with the co-operation of the sitter.”

“The subject matter has to be startling and tragic and mundane.”

“My work is purely autobiographical. It is about myself and my surroundings.”

“I am never inhibited by working from life. On the contrary, I feel more free.”

“The task of the artist is to make the human being uncomfortable.”

“I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me.”

“Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.”

“An artist's model is a helper, a co-operator, a fellow-worker who has the same aim as the artist: the success of the picture.”