Lucian Freud’s Dead Bird on a Bamboo Table is a rare and poignant early work, created around 1944, when Freud was just entering the public eye as a prodigious young draughtsman. Composed in watercolor, gouache, and ink, the image is both delicate and unsettling, precise in detail yet charged with psychological tension. It offers a glimpse into the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the fragility of the body and the blunt facts of mortality.

This early still life reflects a moment before he fully embraced impasto oil painting, but already signals his singular ability to fuse intimacy and clinical observation. The dead bird, rendered with forensic clarity, is staged on a decorative bamboo table, juxtaposing life’s ornamental surface with its abrupt cessation.

This piece will be included in the forthcoming Lucian Freud catalogue raisonné of drawings, currently being prepared by Toby Treves and Catherine Lampert—cementing its place in the permanent record of Freud’s uncompromising and psychologically charged practice.
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