Lucian Freud The Curator’s Egg National Portrait Gallery
John K Grande | Artlyst | 13th February 2026
Lucien Freud is box office gold, at least in Britain. Why not raid his archives to show rarely seen drawings? Some critics think this is a marvellous idea, one citing Freud’s “instinct for the essential, the indelicate, the confrontational”. Other critics seem less convinced. If the drawings are so good, why pad out the show with famous paintings? Says the writer, the show is “a strange mix of great and insignificant”. Another is even sharper: “ Freud did churn out a lot of nonsense as well as his nuggets of greatness.”