Self-Portrait

By: Celia Paul

Narrated by: Rachel Bavidge

A rich, penetrating memoir about the author's relationship with a flawed but influential figure—the painter Lucian Freud—and the satisfactions and struggles of a life lived through art.

One of Britain's most important contemporary painters, Celia Paul has written a reflective, intimate memoir of her life as an artist. Self-Portrait tells the artist's story in her own words, drawn from early journal entries as well as memory, of her childhood in India and her days as a art student at London's Slade School of Fine Art; of her intense decades-long relationship with the older esteemed painter Lucian Freud and the birth of their son; of the challenges of motherhood, the unresolvable conflict between caring for a child and remaining committed to art; of the "invisible skeins between people," the profound familial connections Paul communicates through her paintings of her mother and sisters; and finally, of the mystical presence in her own solitary vision of the world around her.

Self-Portrait is a powerful, liberating evocation of a life and of a life-long dedication to art.

Contains mature themes.

©2019 Celia Paul (P)2022 Tantor

A great story from a great painter and poet.

Paul's prose is vivid, and the portrait she made of her relationship with Lucien Freud is complex. But what stands the most is her relationship with painting itself, the motives and the transformation of that relationship throughout her life.