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

Lucian Freud is widely regarded as the greatest figurative painter of our time. Freud spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford and the daily narrative of their encounters takes the reader straight into the artist's studio, and to the heart of Freud's working methods, both technical and psychological.

Full of wry and revealing observations, this is a book not quite like any other: the inside story of how it feels to pose for a remarkable artist, and be transformed into a work of art.

This is not a biography, but a series of close-ups: the artist at work, and in conversation in restaurants, in taxis and in his studio. It takes one into the company of the painter for whom Picasso, Giacometti and Francis Bacon were friends.

'One of the best books about art, and the making of art, that I have ever read' - Julian Barnes. Note: The ebook edition includes the complete text of the printed book with a reduced number of illustrations.