The Lives of Lucian Freud

William Feaver, Lucian Freud's collaborator, curator and close friend, knew the unknowable artist better than most; and over many years, Freud narrated to him the story of his life, 'our novel'. The result is this electrifying biography, shot through with Freud's own words. In this second volume of Feaver's definitive portrait of one of the most captivating artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we follow Freud - with wives and mistresses, children and gangsters, critics and collectors trailing in his wake - through the glittering landscape of stardom.

Fame follows Freud at the height of his powers, painting the most iconic work of his career in a constant and dissatisfied pursuit of perfection, just outrunning his gambling debts and tailor's bills. Whether shinnying up a drainpipe to woo Jacquetta Eliot, tattooing swallows at the base of Kate Moss's back, or exacting a strange and horrible revenge on Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger, Freud's adventures were always perfectly characteristic: keen-eyed, sexy and devil-may-care. An enfant terrible till the end, even as he was commissioned to paint the Queen and attended his own retrospectives, Freud raged against the dying of the light, never satisfied in his chase for the perfect painting.