Lucian Freud: The Self-Portraits review – menacing, elusive ... orgasmic? — theguardian.com

Lucian Freud at 18, his head ballooning out of the frame, flat-faced, a glint in his liquid eye where the light catches the varnish. His eyebrows are millipedes. Then Lucian in 1943, big-eared, gawky, oddly calm, a white feather in his hand. With each work in this exhibition of Freud’s self-portraits we witness an increasing occupation with his own portrayal, the person moving in and taking up residence in his own unstable image – the one he’s been given and the one he’s making for himself. Sometimes we see Freud in glimpses, or peering round a corner, uneasy but knowing. Then he’s hanging about by a streetlamp, beside a wall surrounding a big house. I hear a lonesome harmonica, and imagine him reaching into his pocket for a packet of Strand cigarettes. (“You’re never alone with a Strand,” the advert went.)

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