Photo: Lucian Freud, Ill in Paris, 1948 (detail), © the artist (private collection).

Lucian Freud’s Etchings 1946 – 2004 is running until June 13 at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Kate Day went to take a look.

This sizeable collection of etchings includes the majority of Lucian Freud’s printed output from the past 60 years and is reviewed publicly for the first time at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.

Freud is well known for the uncompromising approach he takes when painting the human form and his etchings are no less forthright.

Seen as equal - rather than as a precursor or support - to his paintings, these etchings display the same immediacy, honesty and skill.

Photo: Lucian Freud b.1922. Self-Portrait: Reflection, 1996. Etching, edition of 46 © The Artist

While a small number of prints were made in the 1940s it was not until many years later that Freud returned to etching. Since 1982 his output in this medium has been prolific.

Mainly focussing on the human form, but also encompassing pets, plants and landscapes, Freud has taken the linear quality of his paintings and translated it to the etching plate.

Included in this show is the copper etching plate and resulting final edition print of the Head of Bruce Bernard, 1985. It offers a privileged glimpse of the technicalities involved in making these prints.

Photo: Lucian Freud b.1922. Woman with Arm Tattoo, 1996. Etching, edition of 40 © The Artist

The etching process involves scratching into a thin layer of mixed wax and rosin spread on to a metal plate. This is then dipped into an acid bath that eats away at the areas no longer protected by the rosin and wax layer, cutting into the metal.

When the resulting plate is covered in ink, and the excess wiped away, it can be passed through a printing press. The ink left in the grooves of the plate is printed onto the paper.

This process often means that a number of prints are taken, and the plate reworked, before a final edition is printed.

Photo: Lucian Freud b.1922. Man Posing, 1985. Etching, edition of 50 © The Artist

A particularly interesting group of works are those of Freud’s mother. Shown alongside one another are three versions of one etching on one sheet, the final version on another and a corresponding painting in Freud’s trademark oils.

This is perhaps the clearest demonstration of Freud’s process and of the effect that the etching technique has on the appearance of the subject. It would be fair to say that while Freud is well known for the brutal honesty of his paintings, the linear, scratchy quality of his etchings is even more unsympathetic!

While not conventionally flattering, it is this reality that seems to create the lifeblood of the images. The immediate feel of each of the etchings seems to translate Freud’s uncompromising desire to grapple with the substance of flesh and hair, the heaviness of the body and the very essence of life.