For ten years Geordie Greig was among a very small band of friends who regularly met Lucian Freud for breakfast at Clarke’s cafe on Kensington Church Street. More than tea and the morning hours documents, Freud would recount stories of his past and discuss art. It had been, in effect, Freud’s private salon.

With this kaleidoscopic memoir, Greig remembers Freud’s stories: of death threats; escaping from Nazi Germany; falling out in clumps with his sibling Clement; loathing his mom; painting David Hockney; sleeping about Breakfast time with Lucian with horses; escaping the Krays; painting the Queen; his controversial function being a father; and just why Velázquez was the greatest painter. It really is revelatory about his art, his enthusiasts, his kids, his opponents and his appreciate of playing. Freud dared to never do boring, speaking candidly of dance with Garbo aswell as painting Kate Moss nude.

Those closest to him, after decades of silence and secrecy, possess spoken frankly in what life was like living, adoring or sitting for the greatest figurative portraitist from the twentieth century. Partly based on hours of taped interactions with the artist and his group, and drawing on interviews with those who understood Freud intimately – including many girlfriends, models, sellers and bookmakers – Breakfast with Lucian is an personal portrait of the artist as a and old man. It really is a uniquely exciting, personal and authoritative accounts of 1 of the best British painters of this century as well as the last, and a account of a guy who makes everyone else’s existence seem less lived.