Freud didn’t flatter. He revealed!

At the National Portrait Gallery for Lucien Freud Drawing into Painting. Few artists have been reserved or as controversial as Freud.

His portraits are uncompromising. Unfiltered. Often uncomfortable. They resist glamour. They reject flattery Flesh is rendered as weight, texture, vulnerability - never idealised. And yet, decades later, his work continues to define psychological portraiture in Britain. I have been interviewing Sarah Southgate, Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections at the National Portrait Gallery for the next episode of The Art Review, exploring Freud's enduring institutional presence and why his paintings still command such critical gravity.

Some time ago over dinner with neighbours, our hostess shared something extraordinary: she had posed nude for Freud many times. At the table she showed us a book of his works - several of the paintings were of her.

The reactions around the table were varied.

Fascination from some.

Respect by others.

But a teenager girl was visibly horrified.

That moment stayed with me.

Freud's nudes were never about seduction, they were about truth. - about the human form stropped of artifice - about the person and the personality.

It is an excellent show and the great Freud will always challenge us.

James Nicholls