Fritz Hess, London
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Modern British Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture, 12 November 1975, Lot 55
James Kirkman, London
Mary Glasgow C.B.E.
Acquire♏d directly from the ꦬabove by the present owner

London, Lefevre Gallery, New Paintings and Drawings by Lucian Freud, Felix Kelly and Julian Trevelyan, 1944, no. 18
London, Hayward Gallery; Bristol City Art Gallery; Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery; Leeds City Museum and Art Gallery, Lucian Freud, 1974, p. 44, no. 26, illustrated
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; Edinburgh, The Fruitmarket Gallery; Hull, Ferens Art Gallery; Liverpool,  Walker Art Gallery; Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum; San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museum; Minneapolis Institute of Art; New York, Brooke Alexander Gallery; Cleveland Museum of Art; The Saint Louis Art Museum, Lucian Freud Works on Paper, 1988-1989, no. 17, illustrated in colour
Rome, Palazzo Ruspoli; Milan, Castello Sforzesca; Liverpool, Tate Gallery, Lucian Freud, Paintings and Works on Paper 1940-1991, 1991-92, p. 80, no. 53, illustrated in colour
Tochiyi, Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts; Nishinomiya, Otani Memorial Art Museum; Tokyo, Steagaya Art Museum; Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales; Perth, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Lucian Freud, 1992-93, no. 51, illustrated in colour
New York, Robert Miller Gallery, Lucian Freud: Early Works, 1993-94
London, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, Lucian Freud: Early Works 1940-58, 2008, p. 18, no. 6, illustrated in colour

Bruce Bernard & Derek Birdsall, Lucian Freud, London 1996, no. 52, illustrated in colour
Sebastian Smee & Richard Calvocoressi, Lucian Freud on Paper, London 2008, no. 70, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the green of the leaves is stronger in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The top and left edges of the paper are deckled and the work is hinged to the backing board at all four corners. Close inspection reveals two pin-sized spots of foxing to the bottom half of the paper as visible in the catalogue illustration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"As the war drew to a close he sharpened his newly hatched habit of scrutiny on a series of spiky, asymmetrical, and sometimes moribund botanical forms – a sprig of gorse, a branch of sea holly, three cuttings of Scotch Thistle, a potted castor oil plant – each study charged with the same adamant, clean-lined peculiarity as his portraits."
The artist cited in: Sebastian Smee, 'Introduction', in: Sebastian Smee & Richard Calvocoressi, Lucian Freud on Paper, London 2008, p. 7  

 

The remarkable drawing Gorse Sprig prominently belongs among the works included in Lucian's Freud's first ever exhibition held at the Lefevre Gallery in London during the winter of 1944. Freud's stunning portrayal of a Gorse fern cutting deftly pronounces the meticulous scrutiny and razor sharp economy of line inimitable to the defining corpus of early drawings. This work documents the period between 1943 and 1944 during which Freud would regularly draw the wildlife at London Zoo, animal corpses and taxidermy, as well as "ferns and other plants at Kew Gardens" (the artist cited in: Richard Calvocoressi, 'The Graphics of Lucian Freud, in: Sebastian Smee & Richard Calvocoressi, Lucian Freud on Paper, London 2008, p. 22). Exhibiting a remarkable degree of needle-point precision and compositional resolution via the dissemination of line and delicately variegated colour, Gorse Sprig embodies the moment the young artist first hit his stride whilst marking the genesis of a lifelong fascination with plants. Manifestly possessing an almost electrical charge of objective intensity, this masterful drawing epitom🌺izes the prodigiously assured and confident body of work that prompted Freud to admit: "I very much prided myself in my drawing" (the artist cited in: Sebastian Smee, 'Introduction', in: Ibid., p. 7).  

 

Throughout Freud's lifetime the portrayal of plants played an enduring and significant role. Whether appearing as the main protagonist or starkly contrasted against his uncompromising treatment of the human figure, Freud's work never fails to communicate an unbridled enthusiasm for these horticultural forms. Within Gorse Sprig each leaf, branch, petal and thorn, though devoid of humanity and on the verge of decay, is animated by a deep empathy for the vitality and individual distinction of plants. The remarkable degree of empirical attention paid to the brittle quality of spiky foliage and angular stems is mediated by Freud's meticulous command of line and immaculate expressive restraint. Gorse Sprig is exquisitely mesmerising in its almost forensic degree of detail; emanating from the dry solidity of the branch, the profusion of deep verdant green is eloquently interspersed with jewel-like yellow blooms and faded broken stems. Thus, as a celebration of organic compositional complexity, Freud captures an intense melancholic feeling for nature's moribund beauty. In the same vein Freud would later paint the infinitely complex Two Plants during 1977-80, in which he wanted "to have a real biological feeling of things growing and fadiꦯng and leaves coming 🎀up and others dying" (Tate Gallery, display caption, 2004).

Freud's engagement with plants perhaps stems from his formative training at the East Anglian School of Painting between 1939 and 1942. Here the young artist was profoundly influenced by the work and interests of his tutor, painter and keen horticulturalist Cedric Morris. It may even have been the influence of Morris that Freud first gleaned his candid and unrelentingly idiosyncratic approach to subject. Nonetheless, the qualities of acute realism and fastidious execution also suggest Freud was looking to Netherlandish portraits and still life, whilst simultaneously indicating a stylistic debt to Albrecht Dürer. Before emmigrating to Britain at the age of ten, Freud remembers reproductions of Dürer watercolours from the Albertina, particularly The Hare and The Great Piece of Turf hanging on the walls of his parents' apartment in Berlin. Indeed, as Richard Calvocoressi argues, Freud's own "receptiveness to the texture of natural minerals such as hair, fur, feathers, leaves and grass owes something to Dürer's example" (Richard Calvocoressi, 'Introduction' in: Exhibition Catalogue, Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Lucian Freud: Early Works, 1997, p.11). Akin to Dürer's Turf, Gorse Sprig evidences the same highly developed faculty for observation of nature, a scrutiny the artist would later strive to transmute into paint during the 1950s. Embryonically yet assertively exemplified by Gorse Sprig, Freud's meticulously rendered plant forms frequently reappeared in a number of paintings over the coming years. Habitually paired with humans in such masterpieces as the 1951 Interior at Paddington and Interior with Plant, reflection listening (Self portrait) from 1967-68, Freud unremittingly pursued these botanical forms wi♏th a penetrating and ꦑmagnificent psychological scrutiny to rival his portrayal of human subjectivity.