A new novel from Belsize resident 

Ranee Barr

In Ranee’s recently published novel “Finding Comfort  Among Strangers”, set in 1970s Belsize Park and surrounding areas of London, many of you will recognise places and landmarks which are no longer there, and a way of life which no longer exists. Writing this novel, a work of fiction which draws on her own experiences, has also given Ranee the opportunity to weave into the narrative the social history of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she was born and raised.

The novel began as a short story when Ranee was studying creative writing at City Lit, London many years ago. It only began to take shape after she retired from her day job and after publishing the book “Belsize Remembered”. She is currently working on her second novel, a psychological thriller set in Mexico, where she spends several months during the winter.

Finding Comfort Among Strangers is available at Daunt bookshop Belsize Park, from Amazon and as an ebook on Kindle.

Belsize Remembered (Compiled by Ranee Barr and David S Percy; edited by F Peter Woodford; photographs by David S Percy) is also available at Daunts.

Belsize Society committee member and architect Sanya Polescuk writes: 

On 31 September, Open House Festival took place all over London. It was a great opportunity to step into and see many amazing buildings, usually not open to public. As every year for the last decade, following the project’s win of Architects Journal’s Retrofit Award 2013, Sanya Polescuk Architects opened the doors to their studio and the HMO flat above at 8 Belsize Court Garages.

Over 100 visitors came during the weekend of 9 and 10 September. With the help of four wonderful volunteers organised by the Open House Team, the practice’s architects conducted a tour, sharing knowledge of the building including its and the local area’s history. The talk illustrated various stages of design and construction which turned the original 19th century horse stables with coachman’s living quarters into the architects’ studio with the flat above. 

The Open House atmosphere never disappoints. Visitors engage in conversations and ask questions about this and other similar projects of the practice. They all tend to be in conservation areas or are listed buildings so complex planning process is the norm. Questions about the challenges of working with existing buildings and details of sustainable solutions are typical. This year however it was particularly encouraging to see an increase in the interest in technical matters of retrofit such as types of sustainable insulation, carbon-reducing design and modern ways of on-site energy generation. 

If you missed your chance to visit 8 & 8a Belsize Court Garages this year don’t worry, we will welcome the visitors next September again.

Averil Nottage gives us a flavour of her guided walk this autumn which will look at the history of the Eton College estate: 

In the first half of the 19th century the Belsize estate, which had good views of the City, was divided up to provide country residences for wealthy Londoners.  The Eton College estate, to the south of England’s Lane and Lancaster Grove, was lower lying and continued to be farmed as hay meadows.

Apart from two former farmhouses on a track known as England’s Lane, the only properties on the Eton College estate were those in the hamlet of Haverstock Hill on the Hampstead Road.  These are shown in the foreground of John Constable’s “View of the City of London from Sir Richard Steele’s Cottage”, which he painted in around 1832.  The simple white cottage, standing on a bank to the right, was set back from the Hampstead Road and shielded by trees.  It was named after Dick Steele, the Anglo-Irish essayist and playwright who temporarily sought solitude there in 1712.  He was knighted three years later.

Opposite the cottage on the painting is the rustic Load of Hay tavern (which was rebuilt and is now the Haverstock Tavern).  Here, gentlemen of the road drew bridle beside the horse block to refresh themselves with a tankard of ripe ale before setting out across country.  Drovers on their way to market left their cattle drinking at the water trough while quenching their own thirst at the inn.  Coachmen heading for Hampstead stopped to refresh themselves, and their horses, before the final ascent. Londoners enjoying a country walk rested in the tea garden.  During haymaking, labourers gathered to tipple and laugh, quarrel and fight, and sing drowsy songs far into the night. 

The substantial brick houses below the inn replaced wooden structures built for Moll King in the 1730s, as David S. Percy explains in his fascinating book about “The Harlots of Haverstock Hill: ‘Moll’ King and her Belsize Houses.”  We don’t know whether these services were still available in Constable’s time.

Below the hamlet of Haverstock Hill are yellow hayfields.  The American writer Washington Irving, who stayed in Steele’s Cottage in the early 1820s, spent many delicious hours lying on the new mown hay and inhaling the fragrance amongst buzzing summer flies and leaping grasshoppers.  Almost all the meadows, as far as the eye could see, grew hay, with overloaded wooden carts rumbling down the road to London to feed the Capital’s horses.  They would return full of horse manure to enrich the soil.  Londoners came to these isolated meadows to fight duels, hold protest meetings and enjoy country walks.

Beyond the hayfields we see the smoky metropolis.  This was largely beyond the New Road, now known as Euston Road.  Constable would probably have seen the buildings of Camden Town creeping northwards, but he was taking artistic licence in showing St Paul’s from this vantage point.

When the Regents Park canal was completed in 1820, farming on the estate became less profitable as hay could be transported cheaply from further afield.  But the Provost and Fellows of Eton College had little incentive to develop the land as they personally profited when farm leases were renewed.  It was only when they saw the benefits of neighbouring housing developments, such as St John’s Wood, that they started to reconsider.

A plan to build Adelaide Road across the estate in the early 1830s was disrupted by the arrival of the London Birmingham railway.  George Stephenson, the engineer who oversaw the project, used pioneering methods to build an iron bridge at Chalk Farm and a tunnel under Primrose Hill with a grand ornamental entrance.  Large crowds came to visit these novel sights.

Gradually houses started to be built near the Hampstead Road.  Samuel Cuming was the main developer and in the late 1840s built villas in the triangular corner of the estate at Chalk Farm between Provost Road and Eton Road.  It took many more decades to build over the whole estate and in the meantime dairies, market gardens and nurseries, as well as an exotic poultry farm and a cricket ground, appeared.  After proposals were made to develop Primrose Hill as botanical gardens or a cemetery, an agreement was reached with Eton College for it to be preserved as a public open space. 

I will cover all these stories, and more, in a guided walk for the Belsize Society on the development of the Eton College estate in the first half of the 19th century. Please do sign up for this walk on EventBrite.

Live over Work: Visit a carbon-reducing retrofit in Belsize 

Sanya Polescuk Architects are opening their offices, with living spaces above, as part of this year’s Open House Festival. If you are able to drop by, then the address is 8 Belsize Court Garages NW3 5AJ and tour dates/timings will be confirmed in August at https://programme.openhouse.org.uk. The festival runs 6 to 17 September.

Originally a Victorian live-work coach-and-horses stables with hayloft and coachman’s quarters above, this 19th-century mews house is now home to an award-winning architects’ studio, a local community land trust and a 4-bedroom upper maisonette rented as an HMO normally closed to the public. The mix of activities within plays an active role in the lives of the local community. 

The main idea behind the project was to return the building to its originally intended use i.e. provide a place to live and work. As important was to retain the original Victorian features while making as many carbon-reducing and energy-saving improvements as possible (working towards Code of Sustainable Building, Code Level 4).

Come and meet the architects who work in the office on the ground floor and listen to some interesting facts about the building, go through the development phases with more detail, and have a sneak peek into the archives with samples. The tour will not only reveal secrets about architectural practice but also about an energy-efficient historic house which has retained its unique character.

In Camden borough, there are 22 Festival entries this year and, near to Belsize, the Isokon Building is opening. This Grade I listed 1934 residential block of flats was designed by the Canadian modernist architect Wells Coates for clients Jack and Molly Pritchard. Previous Newsletter articles have highlighted the historic nature of the building. An English Heritage blue plaque for Bauhaus masters Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy has been placed on the building.

Nearby and open will be the Hampstead Friends Meeting House, at 120 Heath Street, NW3 1DR. This is a listed Arts and Crafts freestyle building with plain interior and many charming original features, sympathetically modernised in 1991.

Full Festival details at https://programme.openhouse.org.uk. The festival runs 6 to 17 September.

On the main stage – Anthropology

Merril is one of Silicon Valley’s leading software engineers, but her life disintegrates when her younger sister Angie vanishes on her way home from college.  A year later, when the police have long abandoned their search, Merril assembles all the digital material Angie has left behind and sets about building herself a digital simulation of her sister.  The resultant ‘virtual Angie’ offers her some solace – until, that is, it starts to reveal new details about the real Angie’s disappearance. 

San Francisco-based Lauren Gunderson is one of the world’s most produced playwrights.  Author of over 20 plays, Lauren has received the Lanford Wilson Award at the Dramatists Guild Awards and two Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards. 

Anthropology is the twelfth play that Anna Ledwich has directed for Hampstead, where her work has ranged from Labyrinth to the Olivier nominated productions of Dry Powder and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds.  7 Sep to 14 Oct

Downstairs – Octopolis

Professor George Grey is a brilliant behavioural biologist who, alongside her recently deceased husband, became world-renowned for her pioneering research into octopus intelligence. Mainly the intelligence of one particular octopus, in fact: Frances, who still resides in a large, purpose-built tank in George’s campus accommodation.

Into this house of grief walks Harry, an ambitious anthropologist, despatched by the university with permission to test his breathtaking new theory on Frances. The nature of his assignment is shocking to George, and threatens to tear her world apart in more ways than one.

Marek Horn’s plays include Wild Swimming (Edinburgh Fringe and Bristol Old Vic) and Yellowfin (Southwark Playhouse). Octopolis is directed by Ed Madden and is his second collaboration with Marek. Ed’s credits include Yellowfin (Southwark Playhouse) and  A Table Tennis Play (Edinburgh Fringe). 15 Sep to 28 Oct

Averil Nottage, local historian and former BRA Chair, gives us some interesting and amusing links between Belsize and royalty:

In the Middle Ages monarchs determined who owned land.  King Ethelred the Unready granted the manor of Hampstead, including Belsize, to the Abbot of Westminster in 986.  Henry VI granted land to the south of Belsize to the newly created Eton College in 1449.   

By the 16th century Belsize House was a desirable aristocratic country residence.  From 1557 Amigail Waad, an explorer and statesman who became Clerk of the Council to Henry VIII and Edward VI, leased the property.  He passed it on to his son William, who became Clerk of the Council to Queen Elizabeth and James I.  William died in 1623.  

Belsize House and Park opened as a pleasure garden in 1720.  Read’s Journal of 15 July 1721 reported: 

“Last Saturday their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales dined at Belsize-house near Hampstead, attended by several persons of quality, where they were entertained with the diversions of hunting, and such others as the place afforded, with which they seemed well pleased, and at their departure were very liberal to the servants.”

However, the benefits of this royal patronage were short lived as in 1722 Belsize was described as “a scandalous lewd house”, and fashionable visitors soon moved on.

Baron Loughborough bought Shelford House, a substantial property on the northern boundary of the Belsize Estate, shortly before becoming Lord Chancellor in 1783.  He was known for his pomposity and siding with whichever party was in power.  He held extravagant banquets with guests including the Prince of Wales.  By 1801 King George III and the Prime Minister wearied of his “domineering tactics” and dismissed him whilst granting him an earldom.  He became Lord Rosslyn and the house was renamed after him.  When he died in 1805 the King exclaimed, “He has not left a greater knave behind him in my dominions”.   

George IV was determined that his Coronation would eclipse all others.  In July 1821 the Morning Chronical promised: “At night, several of the largest rockets will be thrown up from Primrose Hill, by which light balls will be suspended by parachutes in the air, nearly a mile high, where they will continue to burn for many minutes.”  Belsize residents were ideally placed to enjoy this spectacle. 

A local woman wore a white frock and black sash to mourn the death of William IV in 1837.  Sadly, as she walked down England’s Lane, then just a farm track, she fell into the drainage ditch and spoilt her costume.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were given a pair of exotic fowl in 1842 and established a large royal fowl-house at Windsor.  Poultry keeping soon became very fashionable and poultry shows proliferated.  Elizabeth Watts, of Monk Barnes in England’s Lane, was a serious breeder and writer and highly respected in poultry circles.  She sold eggs for a guinea (£1.05) a dozen.  At the first Windsor show in 1855, Elizabeth won two prizes and Prince Albert was highly commended.

In the early 1850s Queen Victoria went to see if Rosslyn House would be a suitable summer home for her children.  A small girl stopped her carriage at a toll gate in Belsize Lane demanding payment of a penny charge.  The Queen was apparently amused and paid the toll, but she didn’t rent Rosslyn House.  Soon afterwards it became the home of 70 girls orphaned by the Crimean War.  On a sunny day in 1858 Prince Albert led the girls up the hill to a new home in Hampstead.   

It was said that T. Gurney Randall, a butcher in England’s Lane, drove his pony and trap to Buckingham Palace to wait upon Her Majesty for orders.  

Queen Victoria’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees were celebrated with great patriotic zeal.  A beacon was lit by Whitestone Pond on both occasions.  In 1897 the Hampstead Vestry, which covered Belsize, organised a three-day Diamond Jubilee fete in Kenwood.  In a large marquee, ceremonial speeches were followed by a series of concerts.  In another tent there were performing dogs, royal marionettes, ventriloquists, magicians and a knock about cycling act.  And outside there was an old English fair, a grand military tattoo and a full programme of sports races.  Inmates of the workhouse were given special leave and free tickets to take part in the rejoicing.  

The Hampstead and Highgate Express praised the general excellence of the Jubilee decorations on houses and shops, singling out the chaste and artistic decorations and illuminations of the Vestry Hall in Haverstock Hill for special mention.  In February 1901 they noted that all classes across Hampstead loyally observed the Queen’s funeral.  In the following year a merry peal of bells rang out from St Stephen’s Church to celebrate King Edward VII’s Coronation, but the decorations and illuminations were disappointing because of unsettled weather. 

BelSoc is making a contribution to the Belsize Community Library. We are helping to fund (with the Friends of Belsize Library) the much needed interior renovation of the Library. A start has been made on replacing the blinds, which are in very poor condition. Our funding goes towards the overall amounts of money needed to complete the works.

We are also hosting an event with the Friends in June, at which Fabian Watkinson will speak on “The house that no one wanted – Erno Goldfinger & 2 Willow Road”.

Fabian has a passion for architecture and is author of “The Golden Age of Camden Housing”. He has been a National Trust volunteer guide at 2 Willow Road in Hampstead for the past five years and he will tell us about the controversy surrounding its building in the 1930s and the equal controversy surrounding its acquisition by the National Trust in the early 90s.

The talk is part of a series of exciting events that the library has in plan, with dates in the box.

Events at the library

There is an exciting programme of in-person speaker meetings at the Belsize Community Library. All on Thursday evenings, 7.30pm and  £5 is suggested for donation and refreshments.

18 May: Rosmond Kinsey-Milner: Vermeer – the Sphinx of Delft

15 June (joint with BelSoc): Fabian Watkinson: The house that no one wanted – Erno Goldfinger & 2 Willow Road.

21 September: Tudor Allen: Treasures of the Archives – Highlights from the Collections of Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre

19 October – Carole Isaacs: The Wolf of Baghdad

16 November – Lester Hillman: William Camden

14 December – Karin Fernald: The Blue Hour: Painting the North

18 January – Martin Sheppard: The War in Belsize Park

Averil Nottage, local historian and former BRA Chair, tells us about a murky side of life in Chalk Farm in past centuries: 

On the morning of Monday 12 January 1818 William Adams, of Little Chalk Farm, England’s Lane felt unwell.  So, he was still in bed when he heard two firearm shots in quick succession shortly after 9 o’clock.  From his window he saw four men standing in a field opposite his house – two facing each other, about 12 yards apart, with the others standing to one side.  Realising that a duel was being fought, Mr Adams dressed quickly and rushed out, hoping that he could prevent anyone being injured.  The field was about 50 yards from his house and just as he climbed over the gate, he heard two further shots and saw three men running towards a fourth man who was bleeding profusely.  Mr Adams confiscated the pistols and observed that it was a most unfortunate affair, to which one of the men responded: “Yes, it is:  it is not our quarrel originally, we are all friends.”  The others agreed.  

The injured man, Lieutenant Edmund Bailey, was carried to Mr Adams’ house and laid on a sofa in his parlour.  Mr George Rodd, a surgeon from Hampstead, was summoned but unable to save Lieutenant Bailey because of several injuries to his intestines.  Before he died the Lieutenant shook hands with Mr O’Callaghan, who had shot him, and said he freely forgave him and that everything had been conducted most honourably.  He asked Mr O’Callaghan if he would have forgiven him if he was in his place.   Mr Callaghan replied, “Yes my dear fellow, I wish I had been wounded instead of you.”

Mr Adams sent for Thomas Hunt, the Hampstead constable, who arrested Mr O’Callaghan and the two friends who had acted as seconds.  They were taken to Newgate Prison and tried at the Old Bailey on Friday 16 January.  All three men were charged with feloniously, wilfully and with malice of forethought murdering Edmund Bailey.  Ten respectable witnesses gave the prisoners excellent character references for their humanity and gentleness of mind.  The jury found them guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter for which they were imprisoned for 3 months.

It wasn’t surprising that Mr Adams was alert to duels as the peaceful meadows near Chalk Farm were a favourite meeting place for them in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  With no houses between England’s Lane and the Chalk Farm Tavern (where the Lemonia Restaurant now stands), and trees screening the fields, they provided perfect privacy.

In 1806 an Irish poet, Thomas Moore, published “Epistles, Odes and Other Poems” that were deeply critical of America.  Francis Jeffrey condemned him as “the most licentious of modern versifiers” in the Edinburgh Review.  Moore retaliated by challenging him to a duel at dawn on 11 August 1806 in Chalk Farm.  Both men were totally ignorant of the practicalities of duelling.  A friend, who lent pistols to Moore, informed the Bow Street Runners.  So, as Moore and Jeffrey faced each other across a Chalk Farm meadow, the constables appeared.  Both men and their seconds were taken into custody and bound over to keep the peace.  Moore and Jeffrey subsequently became good friends and Byron recorded the foiled duel in “English Bards and Scottish Reviewers” (1809).

There was another literary duel in 1821.  John Scott, the editor of the radical London Magazine, was affronted when the High Tory Blackwood Magazine dismissed what they called the “Cockney School” of poets including Leigh Hunt and John Keats.  The argument played out in further articles in both journals.  On 16 February 1821 Scott demanded an apology or “instant satisfaction”.   When no apology was forthcoming, a duel was arranged for that evening at Chalk Farm.  It was a clear moonlit night, but unfortunately Scott and his second were not familiar with the duelling codes.  In the first round Jonathan Christie, his opponent, deliberately fired wide, which should have ended the process.  However, because Scott’s second did not understand this, another round followed where Christie, in defending himself, mortally wounded Scott.   Scott was taken to the Chalk Farm Tavern where he died on 27 February “without a groan.”  He left a wife and two children.  Jonathan Christie was charged with wilful murder but found not guilty.

By the 1820s there was strong public opposition to duelling which gradually faded out over the next few decades as buildings began to replace the pretty hay meadows of Chalk Farm.

LIFT (Leading Inclusive Futures through Technology) is a 3 year  partnership between four London boroughs (Camden, Islington, Hackney, and Tower Hamlets). Its primary purpose is to put residents from these boroughs in touch with good entry-level training and job opportunities in tech, digital, creative production (music or film production through computers) and life sciences (work in laboratories).

LIFT has a free service that links residents to local businesses in these sectors, offering jobs, training opportunities, start-up/enterprise support, business support, free or subsidised workspaces and funding opportunities.

LIFT is an entry-level programme which can help residents without higher education to progress either into work or onto vocational training courses. Its short courses are typically between 10 and 12 weeks long and include a paid placement to learn and earn on the job. 

LIFT also has apprenticeships and internships, which are excellent ways for people to access entry-level career opportunities with room for further development.

LIFT offers insight sessions on a variety of roles within the tech and digital industries, employer visits and networking events.  

For further information, visit https://www.liftfutures.london/about, or you can contact Cina Aissa (the LIFT community engagement officer in Camden) on 07977 178528. 

You can register for LIFT’s bi-monthly Bulletin to find out about the latest opportunities: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKISLINGTON/signup/31820.  

Freud Museum London until 29 January 2023; curated by Martin Gayford

A small but well-curated exhibition at the Freud Museum in Maresfield Gardens looks at the relationships between artist Lucian Freud and his family – up and down the generations.   Given that the Museum is dedicated to the life and work of Sigmund Freud who lived there, it is not surprising that there are some photographs and film footage of the young Lucian with other family members in his grandfather’s back garden.  Less expected in a museum not dedicated to art exhibitions is the collection of portraits of other family members.  The individual personalities of his children in particular are reflected in Lucian’s striking compositions. 

Lucian was born in Berlin on 8 December 1922 to Ernst and Lucie Freud.   Ernst (1892-1970) was an architect.  He was already living in St John’s Wood with Lucie and their three sons when Sigmund fled to London in 1938.  Ernst had arranged the purchase of the Maresfield Gardens house where Sigmund lived with his wife and daughter Anna (who was herself a founder of child psychoanalysis) until his death in 1939.

The exhibition describes the friction between Lucian and his father.  But a sketch (ink on paper, 1965-66) shows Ernst in older age in a sympathetic light: his worn face and patient smile suggest a caring nature.

Lucian was his mother’s favourite child, a status which he disliked.  Lucie Freud (1896 -1989) was university-educated, studying classical philology and art history.   Her desire for her son to be an artist was so strong that Lucian said it made him “feel sick.”  She is best represented in the exhibition through family photos.  Sitting on grass in the sunshine with Lucian and his brothers Clement and Stephen Gabriel Freud, she looks the devoted mother (photograph, c.1930).

It is however the paintings of Lucian’s children that are perhaps the most evocative.  Head of Ali (etching, 1999) captures the worldly experiences of his son Alexander Boyt.  The exhibition quotes Boyt (born 1957) as saying that he battled with a drug problem for a lot of his life.  At the time of the etching he was “pretty wild” after the death of his girlfriend and a stint in prison over Christmas of 1997.   The etching shows a half-closed left eye which is a visible sign of drug-taking. Much of the exhibition emphasises Lucian’s own wildness.  He was expelled from school, gambled for much of his life and rode horses without a helmet even in his 80s.  At around the time of the etching, he had made a concerted effort to spend time with his son, painting a portrait of him and making the etching immediately afterwards.  The wildness of the father shows in the sympathetic treatment of the son.

By contrast, the group portrait of Lucian’s daughter Rose Pearce with her husband Mark, baby Stella and stepson Alex is almost kitsch (oil on canvas, 1999).  Rose Pearce has described how she did not like sitting for the portrait as she wanted to focus on her new marriage.  She is quoted as saying that the portrait liberated her as it showed her as part of the Pearce family and not just as Freud’s daughter. The painting seems to echo her thoughts, emphasising the division between its subjects and the artist.   It shows the family as entirely ordinary except the oversized baby with enormous feet being held close to her father by his oversized hand.  The family have unremarkable clothes and sit in a featureless corner of a bland room.  They look bored and only the baby’s eyes meet the viewer.  The subjects each look in different directions as if disdainful of the task of sitting for the painter.

Not all the works in the exhibition depict family members.  Other works show Freud’s art as a child and young man, such as a wood box painted in c.1935 for his maternal aunt Gerda.   The cover of the box depicts brightly coloured fish swimming among leafy sea plants.  There are leafy trees such as the vibrant and expressive Palm Tree (pastel, chalk and ink on paper) from 1944.   There are pictures of horses (painted and drawn) as well as a photograph by David Dawson showing Freud in 2003 holding the bridle of a grey gelding.  Dawson captures Freud’s own painting of the gelding mounted on an easel nearby.  The head of the painted horse faces the viewer with its lightly outlined body merging into an abstract background.  Dawson (born 1960) was Lucian Freud’s assistant and remains an artist and photographer of standing.  

The exhibition is accompanied by an intelligent catalogue written by its curator Martin Gayford (the art critic) and Bryony Davies of the Freud Museum.

It was the artist R.B. Kitaj who first used the phrase “School of London” to describe “strange and fascinating” artists who worked in the capital in the post-war years.  They included Freud, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, David Hockney and Howard Hodgkin.  Although Kitaj did not seek to draw strong parallels between members of the School, there are similarities between Freud’s work and (say) Francis Bacon.  The exhibition catalogue quotes Dawson as saying that Lucian Freud “believed in the individuality of absolutely everything.”  Whether people, animals or plants, the Freud Museum has gathered a diverse collection of his work helping us – the viewers – to see the individuality of his subjects.

Lucian Freud died in London in 2011.  This thoughtful exhibition, marking the centenary of his birth, is well worth a visit by Belsize Parkers interested in art, even those who have visited the Museum on other occasions.       

The Freud Museum is at 20 Maresfield Gardens NW3 5SX. For further information and booking, visit www.freud.org.uk

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If you are interested in Lucian Freud’s work, you may also want to know about:

Lucian Lates: Playing Up – artist interventions, performances and films: A night of artist interventions, performances and films that explore the relationships between play and family dynamics.  Journey around the Freud Museum to experience poetry, creative activities and evocative films. Freud Museum, 24 November, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Lucian Freud: New Perspectives: This first major exhibition of Lucian Freud’s work in 10 years brings together paintings from more than seven decades.  National Gallery, Trafalgar Square until 22 January 2023

Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits: The first exhibition to delve into Lucian Freud’s paintings of plants and gardens.  Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, SE1 7LB until 5 March 2023

Modernists & Mavericks Bacon, Freud, Hockney & the London Painters by Martin Gayford.  Published by Thames & Hudson and available in the Freud Museum shop at £12.99 (some of the information in our article is from it).