Man with a blue scarf : on sitting for a portrait by Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud, perhaps the worlds leading portrait painter, spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford.

Gayford describes the process chronologically, from the day he arrived for the first sitting through to his meeting with the couple who bought the finished painting.

As Freud creates a portrait of Gayford, so the art critic produces his own portrait of the notoriously private artist, recounting their wide-ranging conversations and giving a rare insight into Freuds working practice.

The book is illustrated throughout with photographs by David Dawson of Freud at work, with paintings by Freud from the 1940s to the present, and images by other artists discussed by Freud with Gayford.

The result vividly conveys what it is like to be on the inside of the process of creating a painting by a great artist.