British artist Lucian Freud is widely considered the most important figurative painter working today. Master portraitist and specialist in nudes, Freud uses impasto to create depth and intensity while restraining his color palate to mostly muted hues. His portraits may be physically unflattering to their subjects, but they are honest, frank, and unapologetic. I paint people, Freud has said, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.

Based in Sydney, Sebastian Smee is national art critic for The Australian. He has worked as an art critic for the Daily Telegraph in London, where he also wrote for The Art Newspaper, The Guardian, The Independent, and the Spectator. He has written a book called Side by Side: Picasso v Matisse, and more recently, he contributed the sole essays to Lucian Freud Drawings 1940 (Matthew Marks 2004) and to Lucian Freud 1996-2005 (Jonathan Cape, 2005). An interview he conducted with Freud was published in Freud at Work (Jonathan Cape, 2006). --This text refers to the Paperback edition.