Lucian Freud

Portrayed in this life-size bust is a youthful Lucien Freud at the age of 25 years. Freud was the son-in-law of the sculptor (he married Epstein's daughter, Kitty Garman, the year after this bust was made) and grandson of the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. In the 1940s, Epstein began to distance himself from the Vorticist movement that favored a geometric style tending toward abstraction. Moving away from his earlier semi-abstract, almost cubist works, he embraced a more figurative and realist approach in his sculptures. This shift is best seen in his portrait busts of friends and patrons, including this bust of Freud. Although American-born, Epstein was a British citizen and worked in England until his death. This sculpture was one of the works by Epstein acquired through a series of gifts made to American institutions by the sculptor's widow, Lady Kathleen Epstein.