Sitting For Lucian Freud imagine...

There's something about the singular pursuit of painting the human figure,

especially in an age dominated by abstract and conceptual art,

which stands out today. But Lucian Freud, now in his 80s,

has dedicated his life to doing just that - painting people.

And no-one alive today has done this more vividly than he has.

Here at Tate Britain, two years ago, more than 150 works

painted over the past 60 years were shown to phenomenal acclaim.

The retrospective went on to Barcelona and Los Angeles.

There, too, Freud's pre-eminence and the now doubly famous name were spelt out in headlines.

This Freud, the Freud exposed this brash way,

is unrecognisable to those who know him, the Lucian Freud who is at pains to preserve his privacy.

The film you are about to see, made by the director Jake Auerbach

and William Feaver, curator of the retrospective, was two years in the making.

It's their portrait of the artist, and it's a remarkable one, a unique portrait of the painter,

looked at through his work and through the eyes of those best placed to study him -

his family and friends, his sitters.

He has always tried to be very private, and doesn't give interviews.

And so there is a sort of air of mystery about him.

And he has had to pay for that -

the few things that are written about him are totally inaccurate, because nobody knows.

But maybe people who know him,

like me and the other people you are going to talk to,

will be able to produce an alternative thing that is the essence of what he is like.

Well, he suddenly rang me up - and I hadn't heard from him for some time,

so I was very pleased - and said, "Are you free for lunch?"

I said yes. Then he arrived almost at once in this glamorous car,

and I got into it.

Then we made off for that... the River Cafe.

You know how frightening he is as a driver?

And he didn't say anything. He seemed very nervous and troubled,

and I thought, "What can this be about?"

I dimly remembered, when we were all much younger,

there might have been a histoire to do with somebody he was rather keen on.

I didn't know what it was. And suddenly in the middle of lunch, he suddenly said, "Will you sit for me?"

So I said, "Of course". He said, "What time would suit you?"

And I said, out of the blue, "Half past nine in the morning."

That was for the first picture.

The next one, I think, I'd moved house and was a little further.

I think I turned that into ten.

Both pictures he did of me

took about a year,

with me going two or three times a week.

It's not tiring. All you have to do is to be there.

I was just the bit of flesh there.

And it is that mystery of what people actually are.

To have such a famous name, however admired,

but also in some cases not admired, I think must have been a terrible handicap.

But he has risen above it.

Now when people say Freud, they very often mean him.

After the sixth Duke, I think they felt they'd got enough.

The seventh was rather a dry man, who was widowed very young.

The eighth, who shared my love of horseracing,

was a great political figure. He had the best of both worlds.

He had this very long romance with the Duchess of Manchester.

The ninth wasn't interested in pictures.

He had a crippling stroke in 1925 when he was relatively young.

My father was very well-read,

but not particularly interested in pictures.

I like to think, by having these family portraits by Lucian,

I have made a contribution to the art collection here.

He was a friend of my sister, Anne, whose portrait is behind me, and she introduced me to him.

The one of Anne

is so like she was at that time that it's really uncanny.

Well, so is the one of Elizabeth.

When we showed that picture of my mother at her then house in London, and she asked our friends in,

and an uncle by marriage, who was quite a distinguished politician,

who had been in the Cabinet said, "I have never seen such a frightful picture."

She was such a wonderful character and a wonderful person to paint, because you could see

in that picture all the goodness of her coming through.

And in fact, she was very beautiful, but you don't really see that in the picture.

But then that's Lucian, isn't it?

What I think is so extraordinary is that I was 30-something

when he painted me, and it's rather like I am now at 80-something.

I think he painted me around 1960, maybe a bit before.

Then of course, that was quite a discipline,

because it meant every day for three hours when I was in London.

It started with an eye. He used to do that, I think, then.

And I was never allowed to look.

So I never saw the progress.

But it seemed to be very long, but of course the company was so marvellous that it didn't matter.

With anybody else, it would have been endless.

I was always surprised that such an apparently undisciplined person,

who could be out all night and seeing friends and girls and whatever was going on,

was always there when he said he'd be.

He has such a sort of starry quality about him,

such an extraordinary sort of mercurial thing.

It's like something not quite like a human being.

More like a will-o'-the-wisp or something like that.

You can't describe... his being quite.

But he's got such a strong personality that he probably changes people who are with him.

I don't know if they change for him. I think they probably do.

But it would be exhausting to live with -

I mean, to be married to, or, you know... It would be a killer.

It was not a particularly good time in my life,

and I think that is echoed in the picture.

And I think it is a very good picture of what I was like at that particular time.

His portraits are not to everyone's taste.

Do I dare use this word?

His paintings of horses are fairly conventional, aren't they?

Of course, he is a tremendous gambler,

which is not unknown in artists.

I said to him, "You can well afford it. You love racing. Why don't you have a horse or two?"

And he is so dedicated, he said,

"No, it would distract me from painting, and painting is the only thing I care about."

I think his portraits of horses and dogs shows affection,

while I think, quite honestly, his portraits of ladies in particular is misogynous.

-Could you explain that?

-Well, I mean, although for all his...

Well, I don't want to be rude or unkind.

Perhaps you could say that Lucian was something of a philanderer.

Um...

But I'm not sure how...

..how much he loves women.

If you ask a woman, "What's Freud like?"

The first thing you say is dishy. He's dishy.

He's one of those rare people

who have that sexual charisma that they are born with it and they have it till the day they die.

And it's Picasso, Jan Morrow, people like that. It's extraordinary.

And he's like that.

So he's dishy.

Um...

Well, he had organised just the bed, and he just said, "Lie down."

And he had the canvas already there, and then he just said, "Look at me."

So it just meant doing that -

sort of leaning over to look at him.

It was just comfortable like that with sort of my hand on my head.

And you are lying there and you're smelling something from the kitchen.

He loves game. So he's always sort of roasting stuff for the break,

and you get fed on woodcock or quail with champagne for the break.

So I got fatter and fatter and fatter during this sitting!

When I look at the portrait of me,

the leg, the top leg is my leg.

It's like my flesh up there. It feels part of me in a peculiar way.

It's nobody else's in the world.

It seems like me up there.

It was three or four nights a week, four to six hours a night, going on for months.

It's a hell of a commitment.

Painting comes first.

And I think that's been a problem with the women in his life who tried to fight it.

Nothing, nothing gets in the way of that - no social convention, illness, holidays, nothing.

I just help out.

I'm around there every day.

I might be able to make his life a bit simpler so he can carry on painting and I can do the errands.

He's hugely generous and is considerate of people's feelings.

Um...

But he's also hugely demanding for his work. Everything is about...

I mean, his work comes first,

and everything is turned around for his painting.

Lucian will get his sitters round for seven or eight hours, or from eight in the morning

to three in the afternoon, then the night time paintings would start at seven till one in the morning.

You have to be totally absorbed in believing in what you're doing and believing in Lucian.

It's a very long painting.

I'm lying across the bed and there was this whole area

in the foreground which sort of needed something.

And we tried various things - sort of an old plant and my jeans.

It suddenly seemed more exciting to have some more human parts,

and we had this idea of sticking my knees out from under the bed.

So that's what stuck, and it is a good echo of myself on the bed

and then an extra pair of legs underneath.

It is a matter of shedding away all the paraphernalia

that goes with everyday living,

and you quietly reach a core of someone's being

through sitting still for many hours, four or five times a week.

You're left with this quiet space.

Um...

And that's what people mistakenly read as boredom or depression.

It's because someone is just being very quiet, and not introverted, but just being themselves.

And that's what comes out through the paintings,

is the individuality of each person is so different to another's.

So no two sitters ever look alike in their psychological make-up

or in the feel of the painting or anything.

He never introduces anybody to anyone.

He doesn't like everybody meeting,

so he does keep everyone separate.

Yeah, literally, people are kept in separate rooms.

I think it's Lucian giving all his concentration to the one person he is involved with in the room.

And then when that situation is over, he will then go on to who else is in the flat or in the house.

I think a first saw him

in a black nightclub called the Antilles.

Then I saw him at the Gargoyle.

So I saw him flickering about...

in these circumstances, really, and wondered about him.

And he seemed to have much more life than anyone else I'd ever seen.

He seemed so electric.

He asked me if I would sit, and I said I would.

And I felt...

I wanted to please him.

I think it was as simple as that.

Initially, for instance, with this one,

it was much lighter and I didn't feel any sense of strain, really.

It was a sort of happy period,

and...

and it seemed quite domestic.

With the following portrait,

it was much more of a strain, because I think things were going on in my my life,

things were going on in his life, and there was always an element of hidden relationships lurking

that one didn't know about, which were upsetting and worrying at the time.

I think the actual fact

of being used by Lucian,

with whom one is having a very close relationship,

it does mean that the fact of the painting takes on another meaning,

and other people, the painters that I have sat for,

I felt more I was there like a still life, like an apple or a bottle or something.

But it didn't mean that at the end the bottle or the apple would be thrown out.

I had a strong relationship with Lucian and I loved him very much.

And so it was like being flung out of the Garden of Eden.

Well, he asked me first about two years ago,

and I said, "Well, I'm not here long enough.

"I don't stay in England long enough, actually. I'm usually..."

I used to come every three months to see my mother, and I wasn't in London very long.

I said, "I don't think I'm here long enough to."

And this time, when I came back in March, I said,

"Well maybe I'll be here, maybe I'll be here long enough.

"We could start anyway."

Er,

so we did.

His method of painting is very good, because, being slow, it means you can talk.

If you're going to draw someone in one hour,

you can't really chat to them, because you haven't got that long and you want to watch the face.

But if you do have longer and you talk,

you of course get to know and watch the face do a lot of things, I think.

And obviously, that's part of his method, isn't it?

He'd sometimes come very close to look,

and then I'm imagining I suppose he's looking at the subtle differences...

here.

And they are there, but most people are not looking at them.

But he's looking and peering, peering,

coming closer and closer.

He has this energy that I must admit comes across to you as well.

You know, "Well, I daren't fall asleep here.

"I'm only 65."

You are aware of that somehow.

I think I can see that the portraits,

as they have gone on, I think they've got better and better.

And I suppose there's not that many people will give up the time,

probably,

to do it.

I think they're as good portraits as have been done by anybody.

What he's doing, I mean, it's so layered.

Photographs can't get near it.

They thought the photograph would do... And it won't, really.

Nothing can replace painting, nothing.

Er, I'm...

I'm totally convinced of that now.

I had to go through all those things, looking at photographs and stuff.

Lucian just carries on painting.

There's a certain way that people behave when they are around him.

Often, I notice I'm sort of standing on one toe when I'm with him,

that I haven't grounded myself,

because I'm so affected by his presence, which is so powerful.

And I don't think I've hardly seen anybody not behave like that.

You have a choice - and not all of his children have made it -

from very young, that you can get the good bit if you want to accept what he's like,

or you can not get it by being angry for him not being like someone else's father.

And it's an intelligent choice you can make as a child.

And we just decided, without realising it, to make that choice.

When I was 16, I moved to London, and almost immediately I started to sit for him.

And it was a really lovely way of getting to know him,

because until then, I hadn't ever lived in the same city as him.

So I'd only seen him in a formal way, just for a day, or over a meal.

When I went for my first sitting...

..I went into the studio, and I was aware that there were some huge canvases around me

that had paintings of naked women.

So I took my clothes off and sat on the sofa.

My father once said, "Oh, well, my daughters have nothing to be ashamed of."

And we didn't. It never occurred to me to be ashamed.

Then, after that, I didn't sit in the nude.

I feel I can see myself becoming more confident.

But then the last time I sat with my first child when he was a baby,

it was just going to be a picture of the baby,

but as he wouldn't sit still without being fed,

it was a huge picture of my bosom and the baby.

The painting I love most and feel is more me is the painting of me and my sister Bella.

There's something humorous about it, he has captured both our characters

and the way that we are positioned, the way we arranged ourselves on the sofa.

I feel affectionate towards that painting,

and also my memories of that are the three of us being together was so enjoyable.

Esther is very funny and so is Dad, so, um...

It's funny, I've got a much stronger memory of the paintings I did on my own

than those ones together, even with Esther, who I could speak to for 20 hours a day if I got a chance.

I bought that from him while I was sitting, and I said to him, "Who is this baby?"

And he said, "It's just a baby."

And years later, we were talking on the telephone, and he said, "Have you still got Bella?"

And I said, "What do you mean?"

And he said, "Well, you've got the painting of Bella as a baby."

I didn't know. But there she is.

By the time I did see that picture,

it was just a baby and I couldn't recognise any of myself in it.

So it was probably the least meaningful painting.

But my father did a tiny picture of me and him from a photograph,

and that I really liked.

There was something about...

I felt a particular kind of affection, and that used to belong to my mother.

And it was time captured of us both together.

I left home when I was 16 and moved to London,

and immediately started sitting for my father,

and sat on and off for the next eight years.

I had this black dress with flowers embroidered on, and I think...

Dad immediately took a liking to it, so we did two pictures in succession with that dress.

And then, and then...

I can't remember when I did my nude, but I think it was after that.

Always, when I used to go and sit, however troubled I was,

I always felt that I left it at the door.

And then he always made a very nice atmosphere and was very considerate.

It was always nice and warm, and lots of lovely food, or we'd go out.

He'd make it nice in the way that was special for each person,

so he could, you know, get our maximum...cooperation, or enjoyment as well.

I moved just round the corner from Thorn Gate

when I was 15.

So then he used to come round sometimes,

and I didn't have a telephone. I don't think he had one either.

I had a boyfriend then who worked in a factory,

Dad paid £6 a week and the boyfriend paid £6 a week towards the rent.

For a person who used to dislike the feeling of having dependents or having regular commitments,

I think I recognise for him that...

Not that £6 was a lot of money.

But that it was actually, "OK, I can do that for you."

That seemed to be something he could do,

and that was significant, you know, at the time.

I think it's a great painting and I'm very proud of it. I certainly have no regrets whatsoever.

I wouldn't say I would do it again tomorrow, but I'd do it again tomorrow if I was still 19.

And it's amazing what went on between the two of us during that sitting -

how there was a certain amount of combat, under the surface,

maybe some of it more on the surface.

But, um...

But the experience of it was very tough and very hard work and very long hours and very intense.

And my heel was jammed right up against my thighs. All my muscles are completely tense.

Sometimes I would hold that for 90 minutes, and it was not comfortable.

I didn't want to feel all sort of floppy and soggy.

I wanted to feel, "I'm just about to spring into action."

So I was in a position that, for me,

felt maybe a bit guarded and a bit aggressive.

I could have been extremely, extremely, extremely angry,

and I wasn't.

And I felt there was potential for me to suddenly get up and say,

"Look, BLEEP, I'm not doing this any more."

Or, "Where were you when I needed you, you bastard?" Or something like that.

I think he was maybe a little bit worried in case I was suddenly going to actually spring up and protest.

I had... I mean... I wouldn't try and pretend that it was simple, what was going on.

But the fact of not having any clothes on didn't, to me, make it any more complicated.

If I hadn't been his daughter, it wouldn't have been strange.

And I suppose it was because I was his daughter, I am his daughter,

and so people think, because he's Sigmund Freud's grandson,

then we must have an oedipal complex. And that seemed to me,

once someone starts thinking like that, there's not much point talking to them.

I'd probably arrive at eight o'clock here at the studio.

Lucian is always up, and probably working for a couple of hours prior to my arrival.

We then go to the local restaurant.

We have a cup of coffee, or I have some fruit juice.

Come back here, buying papers on the way.

I then... Perhaps we chatter for a while downstairs in the kitchen.

I then go upstairs and change. There's a room at the top where the uniform is kept.

Basically, military portraits are done...

They are slightly flattering, this one isn't.

Secondly, people are looking their best and their uniforms are buffed up and buttoned up.

And you can't pretend, in this portrait, that it is like that.

When one looks in the mirror,

one always thinks perhaps one doesn't look quite so red and bald.

But actually, it is a very true, so far, portrait of how I do obviously look.

People fault him for being too accurate and realistic and he never flatters.

Lucian says time and time again, "I paint what I see, not what you hope I will see."

I think it was in 1980, or around about 1980,

a friend of his and a friend of mine, Michael Tree,

said would I mind if Lucian Freud came to Hyde Park Barracks,

I was in the Household Cavalry, and did a picture of a horse.

I was rather excited about it. So he came, did a picture of the horse.

Then he and I started riding together in Hyde Park,

which was great fun, but always worried me that he refused to wear a hard hat.

He didn't like walking. He loved cantering and galloping.

I thought I'd be blamed if he fell on his head for killing England's greatest painter.

He's a very brave horseman. He understands horses.

It's interesting seeing him with horses. He makes the right moves,

doesn't frighten horses.

Yes, you can see that he...

One, he is a good and brave rider, and secondly, he enjoys their company.

When I sit for Lucian, quite a lot of the time's taken up with talking, which is always fascinating.

I mean, this morning, he was quoting everything from Shakespeare to Kipling.

And he's got an amazing memory, going right back to before the war - people's names and what they did,

what they said, which is fascinating.

Also, what I learnt a lot about is - I ask his opinion of various artists and their work.

I've been around exhibitions with him in the early morning or late at night.

His knowledge is so deep that I've learnt an awful lot in the last year.

I must say I'm very happy when I see the white of the canvas disappearing under paint.

That does fill me with enthusiasm and encouragement, yes.

I do believe that he is the greatest artist alive at the moment.

And therefore, I'm very lucky to be sitting for him.

And I think when it's finished,

it will be a chapter in one's life and we move on to another chapter.

I remember - I have such a vivid memory of him

when I first of all saw him.

He, um...

He came into the life-drawing studio, very intense,

and gave a very intense stare at the model who was lying on the floor.

And, um,

he was wearing the most beautiful grey suit

and a pale shirt

and smoking a French cigarette

and just...

very, very charismatic.

And, um...

I was nervous of him because he had such power

that I went up to him and asked him to see my work.

He told me afterwards

that he had come to the Slade to find a girl and that girl was me.

So, I think he had very much come to the Slade to find someone.

When I sat for the Naked Girl With Eggs,

I was so very unhappy about it. I felt...

It did feel very like me -

I felt sort of excruciated by how like me it was.

I know I used to cry a lot

and Lucian used to be actually very nice about it.

His work is all about truth and...

and...

and the only way you can really tell the truth

is by concentrating and not turning away from it.

I suppose I love the one of me in the striped nightshirt.

Partly, I was pregnant at the time

and so it is a sort of record of our closeness.

I think you can sort of see that he loves me in it

and...

there just seems to be something so tender about it.

In a way, I am very proud of the one of the painter and model,

despite the real-life situation - Lucian having the real power.

I think he's made me a very represent,

powerful woman painter.

I know Lucian always likes to resist any kind of narrative interpretation,

but for me,

I think the painting is about power and desire.

I think this is a very sexual thing -

the paint squirting out of the tube.

And also, like the angled brush and everything,

it seems very much

that I am almost the male figure of the two.

I feel so connected with the story of how each one was made

that it is difficult for me to see the paintings

without thinking of all that went into it. So...

Um...

I think I feel connected to their history,

rather than to them themselves.

In 1990, the performance artist Leigh Bowery began sitting for Freud

for what became a whole series of paintings.

After a while, Bowery became more in demand as a performer.

He was also increasingly aware of his declining health.

In 1993, a year or so before he died,

he introduced to Freud friends of his who he thought would make good sitters.

Him and Leigh,

they both had that little naughtiness about them.

I think that is why they liked each other so much.

They were always testing you.

The first painting that I was painted in with Leigh Bowery was called And The Bridegroom.

It's a painting of me and Leigh on a bed together.

Leigh was determined that he wanted to be on his back.

He was trying his hardest to get the most comfortable pose.

Nicola Bateman, Bowery's widow, began sitting for paintings that,

for the sitter, were real, physical challenges.

It is a strange pose,

but I think he thought I was small enough to be able to fit up there and he had this idea.

As he was coming towards the end of painting that one and finishing it,

it was around that time that Leigh started to die.

The whole time, I was just thinking about Leigh in hospital

and why the new drug was not working, was he going to die?

And then the certainty of knowing that he is dying right now.

It gave me a little bit of breathing space from the situation because I was with Leigh from morning -

from about 9 o'clock - till I sat for Lucian in the evening,

which was about six.

It gave me a bit of breathing space, which I think I needed.

I think it was a very intense period of time,

so to have a legitimate excuse to go, to be away, was good.

I work in a JobCentre. Leigh thought that wasn't good enough for me

and I should expand my mind and learn more.

He thought working for Lucian was like going to university

because he learnt so much.

He planted the seed in Lucian's mind that I should work for him.

I was a bit nervous about taking my clothes off,

but Leigh came round...

Before we went there, Leigh came to call for me first

and he made me take my clothes off and lie on the settee to practise.

And to poke fun at me!

I just look horrible. I look like a great, huge, fat crab,

all laid out on the floor in a funny position.

That was so uncomfortable and the reason...

It was my first picture and Leigh was in it,

before he went off somewhere, and he got changed into the dog.

It is a blessing that I look so horrible in the pictures.

In real life, people are always surprised I look a bit better.

I think it was more Lucian's image of me rather than me myself.

If you can understand that.

Sometimes I was really in the mood for chatting.

I had lots of energy and then he was in a silent mood.

Other times, I might have a terrible hangover and thought I could sleep.

Then he would be so chatty.

Sometimes he would be serious and suddenly he would start swearing. BLEEP!

Like he had Tourettes.

He would start smashing the brushes when something wasn't going quite right.

I used to get embarrassed and keep my eyes closed.

Yes, I think really he has done what he wants throughout his life.

And good luck to him for doing that.

Most people are too - feel guilty or whatever to behave like that.

He looks a lot more intently I think than any other situation. The way he looks is so...

I don't know, intrusive in a way.

He'll appreciate shapes and forms for the way it will go on a canvas,

not as a person, not as a human being, but as the image, really.

He will see something that excites him or interests him

and that will be the idea for another painting.

He had recently got in touch with Freddie,

the male in the picture, and Sarah, who was a friend of mine

who I introduced to Lucian, had just sat for him.

He approached us all about it and whether we would do it with other people in the picture.

It is all quite realistic, really.

It's not some...

Once it is all finished,

it is a work of art, but it's all very practical and straightforward.

The After Watteau painting is so melancholy.

I think there is something...

um, about...

I mean to do with how very...

isolated we all seem.

Physically, in terms of sitting, that was the most uncomfortable one.

It was very hot and I didn't like sitting next to other people

when we did all have to be together because it made it even hotter.

Then I had to sit up and, you know, hold that mandolin

and I began to hate the dress because it was so old and dusty.

Often, when I did sit, it would be more with Celia

and we didn't sit all together that much, except at the beginning.

Because Lucian likes to keep every relationship

and every strand of his life so very separate,

um...

it was an exciting challenge to bring together people that, you know, mattered to him.

When I started sitting, it was in a skirt that my mother was wearing

because she stopped sitting, and that was quite odd.

I think I started sitting,

not as an understudy, when I was 18 or 19.

I can't quite remember, but I think I'd just moved to a flat in Kilburn.

I remember putting a lot of make-up on the first time, which I didn't normally wear.

It's funny because in one way, it's quite intense and personal,

and, in another way, it's quite businesslike,

in that work is taking place.

Although we are very different characters,

we seemed to have a lot in common and have the same interests.

We talked a lot about what we were reading and also,

I was very interested in musicals and the music hall and we talked a lot about that.

Sometimes sang a bit. It was nice.

I think now if I was sitting, I might be slightly aware that,

in order for him to work, it meant that I couldn't be,

but then I would quite often think about what I was working on when I was there.

In fact, it was quite useful in that way,

in terms of thinking of how to take a book on, how to develop a character or something.

I think it has always been,

on balance, a very satisfying experience.

He wasn't painting me for a bit

and I put my little Beanie Baby on my head and I was trying to balance it.

Then he said, "Why don't I paint you like that?"

So, we...

He hadn't painted my head yet, so he painted my head with a Beanie Baby koala on.

It was a bit strange, but it looked OK.

He sings very strange songs,

which I have all forgotten,

but you wouldn't think there would be a song about that kind of thing.

It's very strange.

He just...

He just makes the boringest subject quite interesting, which is quite good.

I think that's been very nice for me, with Alice sitting,

that I have been very careful to say to Dad

that I wanted them picked up and dropped off.

For me, I have negative associations with the journey.

That's partly my fault because he would give me the cab fare home and I'd get the bus to save the money.

I remember having to be literally taken screaming and crying

from family life on a Sunday, I just didn't want to go.

I remember my mum quite, you know, sympathetic to me,

yet knowing I must go because we've made this commitment to do this picture,

and her kind of stress and my tantrums and...

This is what I can remember.

And then, the second when I was about 16.

Third one when I was about 23...

-With Daddy.

-28...

-You did a picture with Daddy, Mum.

One with Daddy, and the most recent one was...

five or six years ago, I think.

That one took for ever. Just for ever and ever.

In fact, I read all three volumes of Remembrance Of Things Past

whilst sitting for it, and a couple of other books besides.

That's how long it took.

That was very different from the time before, where I sat with...

I think it was a picture with the children's father,

which was a very different kind of situation at the time.

We were very close and, you know, we were physically close when the picture was being painted.

The later picture, it was fairly shortly after we had separated.

And, um...it was...

There is a very different atmosphere in both pictures,

probably as a result of me being in a very different state of mind.

It's something I've always said I'll never do again and then have.

-And so, why? Why do you do it again?

-Um...

Why do I do it again?

I guess...

because it's a way of having a relationship with my dad.

Um, and...

I don't...

There's a part of me that if he wants to paint, I am quite flattered.

I always start off saying it has got to be an etching or a drawing or something really small,

and then I nod off and then there's a canvas on the easel, so some hoodwinking has gone on.

I see each picture as, kind of, representing a period in my life in that way.

Because, it's not really a snapshot like a photo, if you spent six months or something -

it is a substantial enough period to have how you felt at that time -

your state of mind or what you are going through - encapsulated in a picture.

It did look like her but it was a bit unflattering and I thought,

"My mum's a bit prettier than that." I don't know. I think he's good.

He draws his family quite a lot of the time

and I don't think those pictures are much different from people he doesn't know that well.

I think he does make some people look a bit uglier then they are, but I don't think he is thinking,

"I'm making them look pretty, I'm making them look ugly."

I think he just does what he sees, and if that turns out badly, I don't think he...

He doesn't care what people think anyway, so I don't think it really makes a difference.

I don't think it was entirely his idea to do me and Mark together.

I think that was my idea.

I might be wrong, but I think maybe Dad said, "Do you want to sit?"

And maybe I said, "What about doing it with Mark?"

Then, Mark was doing his teaching degree

and so I said I'd perch on the arm of the armchair

and he can sit on the armchair, as the one thing worse than being really uncomfortable

is having a really uncomfortable, tired husband.

I thought if he sits in the chair, I can handle it. Ha!

And then I got pregnant and when I told him about the pregnancy,

I don't think... His first impulse wasn't either,

"Oh, congratulations, everything is going to be great now."

Or, "I'm going to be a grandfather."

It was, "BLEEP, that is really going to BLEEP my painting." I'm sure that...

He didn't say that and didn't let on,

but that had to be his initial reaction, because why wouldn't it?

He is trying to do this painting and there's this woman expanding,

balanced on the arm of this chair.

So then I told Dad that we could come back but Stella would have to be in the picture as well.

I think Dad decided that she should sit on Mark's knee,

so then Alex got in on the act as he was going to feel left out

if it was this big Pearce family number, and what happened to him?

I thought that would be hard for him also.

When Stella was nine months, I got pregnant again.

Then, all of a sudden, I was making the announcement for the second time.

It wasn't long after giving birth to Vincent that the painting was finished.

It could even have had two babies in it, but it didn't.

That was a long time - not pregnant, pregnant,

nine months, pregnant again, almost another nine months.

There is such a contradiction with someone who's done all they can

to avoid any kind of family life on a day-to-day domestic basis.

And then, all of a sudden,

the one thing that they like more than anything is having this huge family,

and it's a strange tension.

And, um...

With a father, when I was younger,

he was interested in horses and women and painting - none of that is anything to do with me.

And then all of a sudden, he is interested in families

and how everyone has grown up and the grandchildren.

I feel absolutely delighted that that's his focus,

and that, to me, is just so cosy.

I don't mean that I would dare to say that one of his paintings was cosy,

but the idea that what he really likes is children and grandchildren, to me, is good news.

Whenever he starts painting - doing a self-portrait -

I'm always really excited about that.

Almost, I think, if I could have any painting, I would want one of his self-portraits.

For me, they are so meaningful and poignant.

They mean so much to me.

And, you know, watching him change through his own paintings

and how sort of severe he is.

Some of his critics have said some of his naked portraits

have a real sense of being stripped bare - of not having any cover.

Whereas in that picture, he just seems incidentally not have any clothes on.

There's not any kind of rawness about it or exposure.

He hasn't metaphorically exposed himself in the picture, even if he has literally.

Partly I like them in terms of seeing different stages in his life,

seeing as we don't have a great deal of a family photographs.

I don't like looking at it.

I don't know if it is because it's very final looking,

but I definitely don't like looking at it.

There's something very soft and tender about it.

It's so moving and amazing to think that he looks at himself like that,

and he is not frightened to look absolutely starkly clear at himself.

Each time he does one it's a scary feeling of time passing

and feeling, you know...

..getting nearer to losing him,

which is a horrible thing.

We had this 80th birthday party with all the children and grandchildren.

It was incredibly moving.

And that it seemed...

It seemed like it was a wonderful thing.

But I think the thing of feeling - if he was feeling sad in that show,

that you have a beginning and a middle... Well, you have an end.

Sometimes you can forget that for five minutes.

Only for about five... four, maybe, and that show was...

You couldn't have a Shakespearean tragedy unless somebody died at the end,

and that's what happens.

That's what was so spectacular about that show -

that there was no turning away from anything.

That's...

That it's...

You have to have that sadness.

I've never been that big on happy endings anyway,

but because you can only have a happy precursor to the ending,

but then the ending is never... It can't really be happy.

Since I've been sitting, I've learnt a lot more about painting and art,

so there are four pictures I would particularly like to have of Lucian's.

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