Main T.o.C. Change Resist Ground Art

Judith Skillman Studio      after Lucian Freud His grandson subdued, sitting for a portrait on a hardwood chair. This could be any house— the fireplace cold, the mantel dusty. Light makes its rounds: morning, afternoon, evening. Feet scuff oak floors, no one’s fastidious about dirt—his grandfather saw to that. A newspaper lies open, its pages gawking about the war he’s escaped here in Paddington. Never mind the punishing sittings for Kitty and her dog, his mother’s three hundred hours under scrutiny. Were there forty children or fourteen? Questions not asked on an analytic sofa. Only supine figures. Big Sue’s folded flesh mimics mountains. Belly belly breast breast. Here the evacuee, there the rat. Will he sleep in the stable tonight? How noble are the horses, who require no remonstrance to stand still. He holds the halter with one hand and the brush in the other, indifferent to any lesson except linen stretched on a rack.

Portrait of Kitty Lucien Freud 1949

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