David Dawson - Lucian Freud's Studio

September 2019

From one amazing room (Zandra Rhodes’s salon) to another - Lucian Freud’s Studio, that has be left untouched, and unseen, since his death 11 years ago!

David Dawson was Lucian Freuds studio manager and friend for 20 years and also an occasional model, appearing in 7 of his paintings. Whan Freud dies he left the studio and house in Kensington, to Dawson, along with management of his archive. Dawson was living in the house, so didn’t feel comfortable yet to open the studio to the public or make the house into a museum, though this was a future plan.

What was striking was how alive the Memory of Lucian Freud was in the studio and how this place held so much history for David Dawson. There was also something striking about the physicality of Dawson, his stillness which was obviously learned over the years as a model. Also the wall colour, gave off such a fantastic reflected light that really resonated with Lucian Freuds paintings - this was his light that and setup that I was borrowing.