An exhibition of the work of Celia Paul, and her own newly published memoir, together tell the story of a female artist who has broken free from the shadow of Lucian Freud

Chapter One of Celia Paul’s newly published memoir, Self-Portrait, is entitled “Lucian”, as is chapter four. Lucian Freud and Paul had a relationship that lasted 10 years, and shared a son (one of Freud’s at least 14 children with at least six women). Her book is heavily peppered with the details of what they meant to one another, alongside her fascinating family story. Paul was born in 1959, one of five daughters of an Anglican clergyman, later bishop; she almost died of leukaemia as a young child in India. Her mother, who died in 2015, was her muse for many years and would climb the 80 steps to Paul’s flat opposite the British Museum well into her eighties, to sit for her artist daughter.

But it’s Freud who dominates the book, which is entirely understandable – their relationship was important to Paul’s development as an artist, as well as to her personal development as a woman and as a mother. Probably his presence was important, also, to Paul’s publisher, Jonathan Cape. Yet I couldn’t help thinking, as I read it, about whether Paul is as dominant a character in biographies of Freud. The answer, of course, is that she is not.

Therein lies the essential problem of being an artist who happens to be a woman, because artists who happen to be men always have, and continue to have, the spotlight trained firmly on them. And while it is perfectly possible in theory that the art world could be as full of young male artists who have learned much of what they know through close relationships with older, more established female artists, in practice this is hardly ever the case (I can’t think of a single example).