As crowds continue to flock to Lucian Freud's exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery it is time to consider how Britain can continue to do justice to this great artist when the show closes and the news moves on. Freud was never a deliberately attention-grabbing artist, but the warm public response to his art since his death offers heartening evidence that true quality transcends fashion, publicity, and the white noise of cultural chatter.
I believe Britain should open a museum in his honour. I really mean it. There needs to be a Freud gallery that permanently preserves his work and provides future generations with a repository of his achievements. There is an obvious problem – I'll come to that – but also an imperative to make this happen.
Freud is an artist you can fruitfully compare with the loftiest of masters. Here is a simple test. See his exhibition and then go next door to the National Gallery, where Titian's Diana and Callisto is on view after being bought for the nation. This short walk is an appropriate Freudian pilgrimage because he played a dramatic part in the campaign to purchase its pendant, Diana and Actaeon, breaking the media silence of a lifetime to champion it on television. How sweet that his NPG show coincides with the completion of this bid to keep two of the most marvellous paintings in the world in this country. And here's the thing: Freud's nudes, their physical presence so acutely real, can stand the comparison with Titian's. I am not saying that lightly.
When Freud was old, he was revered as a living master. That was not some fawning hyperbole. For once, it was true. But Freud by the same token is out of time, out of sync. He had no interest at all in ideas of artistic progress, social relevance, or contemporaneity. His portrait of a benefits supervisor asleep is not a comment on the benefits system. His portrayal of Leigh Bowery was not an attempt to engage with club culture. Freud stands apart, and there is a danger that his monumental genius will be sidelined in the story of modern art.
Besides Freud is a truth-teller and who likes the truth? His uneasy portrayal of the human condition is a slap in all our faces.
A Lucian Freud gallery would do more than preserve his name. It would keep his shocking revelations about the raw stuff of humanity in our eyes forever, and stop us turning away in discomfort. The problem, of course, is that Freud's paintings are very valuable and scattered in private collections and museums. A public-funded gallery of his work would have to rely on loans, bequests, and aim to build up its collection over time. Yet that works for Tate Modern. If a building with buzz were created, and government support was permanent enough, it could take off. An Abramovich might enjoy making a long-term loan to such an enterprise. Anyway, it is the right thing to do.
Freud's landmark exhibition has cut through the illusions and affirmed the reality of who, in British art, is truly great. We need to do everything possible to preserve this moment of truth.