An artist who never flatters

Ever since Francis Bacon died nine years ago, Lucian Freud has vied with David Hockney for the title of Britain's Greatest Living Painter.

Grandson of Sigmund Freud, he was born in Berlin in 1922 into a family aware of contemporary art, and moved to London in 1932, where he lives today.

His earliest artistic influences were German, but by the time he came to public attention in the early Fifties with sharply focused and intense portraits of Bacon and Caroline Blackwood (his first wife), his very individual style was already developed and recognisably his own. Since then, through every period of his work, in spite of violent changes of scale and technique,paintings by him have been immediately identifiable.

He has concentrated unremittingly on the human form, in chalky, fleshy nudes, figures and portraiture, and frequently drawn on his own family, whether his mother or his daughters (among them the writers Esther Freud and Susie Boyt and fashion designer Bella Freud). Portraiture has always been part of his strength, but he has never flattered, whether depicting face or body; all is subsumed in the intensity of his gaze. This has not deterred the great and the good - the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Rothschild, even the pregnant Jerry Hall - from seeking him out to paint their portrait.

Now 79, he retains a deep aversion to publicity, which his colourful love life has continued to attract, up to and including his recent association with 28-year-old journalist Emily Bearn. His major paintings fetch millions on the open market: the record is £4million in 1998.