Naked Portrait
A Memoir of my Father Lucian Freud
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Naked Portrait
Narrated by:
Rose Boyt
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Rose Boyt
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By:
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Rose Boyt
About this listen
Read by the author, Rose Boyt.
‘Hypnotic and propulsive’ - The Sunday Times
‘Thrilling’ - The TLS
‘Compulsive’ - The Observer
In Naked Portrait Rose Boyt explores her complicated relationship with her beloved father, Lucian Freud, drawing on a diary she kept while sitting for him and which she found five years after his death.
Nothing had been discussed, I just assumed I would be naked. I got undressed and asked him what he would like me to do. He said it was up to me.
Enthralled by his genius, Rose remembered as uncontentious and amusing all the extraordinary stories he told her to keep her entertained in the studio, but the shock of the truth is profound when she looks back. What emerges is her compassion and love not just for herself as a vulnerable young woman but for the man himself, in all his brilliant complexity.
‘Packed to the rafters with wisdom and insight, this immersive account of being the child of a genius is, itself, a work of art’ - Frances Wilson, The Telegraph ‘Books of the Year’
‘Beyond the father–daughter dynamic is an evocative tale of coming of age in London in the 1980s’ - Hettie Judah, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The unexpected miracle of the book is its emotional complexity’ - Claire Dederer, The Guardian
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Critic reviews
'One of the compulsive aspects of Boyt’s book is that, as a reader, you get to listen in on her trying to make honest sense of events that go well beyond what any daughter might be expected to fathom. I ended up reading it in one sitting, well into the early hours of the following day.' (Tim Adams)
I can’t think of an art book with an opening page like it. Lines land like detonations . . . The writing is hypnotic and propulsive . . . It’s so powerful, so horrible, the set-up compelling.
The reader is invited into the innermost intimacies of a private life, not just the scandalous details and long-held secrets, but the long waking hours, the temporal chasms between the more gossip-worthy parts of Boyt’s existence . . . Naked Portrait is a hall of mirrors with the young Boyt at its centre, surveyed from above by her now-66-year-old self. Its events juxtapose, clash and occasionally confuse, painting a portrait of Freud that’s even more revealing than his nude depiction of Rose.
Beyond the father-daughter dynamic is an evocative tale of coming of age in London in the 1980s, one marked by grief, bad boyfriends, sexual compromises and camaraderie. So much life worth telling, out beyond the shadows of great men (Hettie Judah)
Boyt’s stories of her father and her relations with him are dramatic and often shocking
Rose Boyt’s account of her father exposes the shocking realities of life with the ‘difficult genius’ of British art
This wise and insightful memoir, written by Lucian Freud's daughter, is both a tribute to the genius of the great painter and a painful reckoning with his parenting style
Of Lucien’s fourteen children born to six different women, Rose had the dubious honour of being the ‘chosen one’ to be her father’s sole executor and legatee, left only with the injunction “be fair” to guide her. She was also chosen to be for her entire life the most indissolubly entwined daughter with her father - destructively and, much less obviously, positively. She was certainly the only one of his offspring Lucien chose to paint naked. Rose’s clear sighted side came to recognise her father to be what she called a “sick f***”, but at the same time her whole conflicted being was so much enmeshed with his that she was powerless to do other than please him. And so, as a teenager, she posed naked for the portrait , sitting for him week after week of long days sometimes stretching into the night. Looking now at the pose Lucien chose for his young daughter, I whole-heartedly agree with Rose’s instinctive opinion of him.
Rose was failed also by her mother ,Suzy Boyt who had been Lucien’s young student at the Slade. Unmarried, she bore him five children and with no support from him, the family struggled financially. When Rose was three, her mother suddenly disappeared for a bewildering length of time. In later years, for almost two years they lived on a criminally unseaworthy boat in the Caribbean with Suzy’s alcoholic lover whose sexual interest in Rose frightened her nine year old self. At fourteen she was raped by her brother’s school friend, an incident brushed aside by her mother. At fifteen she escaped to live with a boyfriend… There is plenty here for Rose to be plummeted into anxiety, fear, anger, depression, painful relationships, feelings of worthlessness, and dependence on therapy, but there was much more, which in its detail was upsetting to listen to, let alone for Rose to have endured. I was relieved when in her thirties she had the husband and babies she always longed for.
Rose was not the best narrator for her work. Twelve hours is a long time for her dreary monotone which became particularly trying when she was reading extensive diary entries . She sounds – as might well be the case , or even the intention – as though every ounce of animation had been drained from her.
The chosen one
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A must read ✨✨✨✨✨Truly captivating, harrowing and beautiful in equal measure!
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A beautiful and moving book
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Boring
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‘I found an old diary…
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