Lucian Freud's Etchings: A Creative Collaboration

Fascinating exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of etchings by Lucien Freud.

The show marks a donation to the museum in lieu of inheritance tax from the estate of Marc Balakjian, the master printer who Freud worked with on etchings. Balakjian had kept a collection of trial proofs of their work.

The commentary explained how they had worked closely together with Freud marking up the proofs with charges and the prints in the show these changes. There were multiple examples of each prints showing the subtle changes between each. I must admit a lot of the tweaks were too subtle for me to spot. In one case they were shown with the original etching plate.

There were some beautiful images shown with examples of prints in the collection by artists whose prints were admired by Freud.

I was particularly interested as in talks on Renaissance art I often hear about the relationship between artists and print makers so it was insightful to see an example of this relationship in a contemporary setting.

Closes 25 August 2024


 

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