Richter stinks! What artists really think of each other’s work

Lucian Freud was rude about David Hockney’s work – but their tiff barely compares to those of the old masters

News that Lucian Freud was privately dismissive of some of David Hockney’s paintings shouldn’t come as a surprise. Freud, the cantankerous eminence grise of British portraiture, was not one to lavish praise on any contemporary; indeed, he would often refer to his friend-turned-bitter-rival Denis Wirth-Miller as “Dennis Worth-Nothing”. That the latter may have stolen one of Freud’s paintings probably didn’t help, but neither left anybody in any doubt as to their opinions of each other’s output.

However, Freud was neither the first nor the last artist to get into a slanging match. Hockney himself has levelled several barbs in the direction of Gerhard Richter. “To be honest, I don’t really understand Richter,” he said in 2015. “[…] I just can’t see any profundity.” He added: “[It’s] OK, but I don’t see what’s so great about it.” Just in case the message was lost, he clarified that he meant all this “pejoratively”.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2yBcVCq