Naked Portrait
A Memoir of Lucian Freud
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Naked Portrait
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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.
‘Towards the end of the summer of 2016 I found an old diary in a cardboard box, hundreds of typed pages, the first dated 9 September 1989. I put the diary away without reading it; I had lost my father, my mother had died only three months earlier, and it was not the right time to think about anything. I was heartbroken.
As I remembered it the diary was about sitting again, an easy portrait this time, fully clothed, the manuscript mainly a record of my father’s remarkable stories. I imagined all his stories were amusing, uncontentious, but even if that had been true I still would not have been ready. It is unclear to me now how I was able so effectively to distort reality.’
In Naked Portrait Rose Boyt explores her complicated relationship with her beloved father, Lucian Freud, through the diary and other accounts of sitting for him, naked or otherwise. Enthralled by his genius, it was only after his death that she began to question the version of events she had come to accept. The shock of the truth is profound but what emerges is her love and compassion not just for herself as a vulnerable young woman, but for the man himself, who is shown in all his brilliant complexity.
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What listeners say about Naked Portrait
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rachel Redford
- 27-07-24
The chosen one
‘Naked Portrait A memoir of Lucien Freud’ doesn’t seem an accurate title for this, his daughter Rose Boyt’s disturbing book ,as it is Rose herself who is at its centre. Naked Portrait is an intensely detailed and insightful analysis of the relationship between herself and her fabled artist father, who dominated her life and whom she both loved and loathed. The book is a study of a horribly damaged child and woman, stripped bare (appropriately ) and devastatingly honest. I found it profoundly shocking.
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.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 24-06-24
A must read ✨✨✨✨✨Truly captivating, harrowing and beautiful in equal measure!
I absolutely loved this book. Thank you Rose for your openness. This work is truly outstanding!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- zofia c allen
- 02-06-24
A beautiful and moving book
A wonderful insight to Lucian Freud. An open and honest account of his selfishness and also his sensitivity.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Interested
- 10-06-24
‘I found an old diary…
The author reading pages of an old diary in a monotone voice, as if impersonating a machine. Uncomfortable listening to revelations of others’ lives who may not wish to be known for their poor decisions and sufferings.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Karin
- 02-07-24
Boring
First chapter ok once I had got used to her voice but really a book based on dull diary extracts…. No thanks!
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