SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019
SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATOR

'A compendium of high-grade gossip about everyone from Princess Margaret to the Krays, a snapshot of grimy London and a narrative of Freud's career and rackety life and loves . Leaves the reader itching for more' SUNDAY TIMES, ART BOOK OF THE YEAR

Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver - about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves. The result is this a unique, electrifying biography.

In Youth, Feaver conjures Freud's early childhood: Sigmund Freud's grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934. Following Freud through art school, his time in the Navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho - consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret - Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man's coming of age.

'Brilliant . Freud would have approved' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Superlative . packed with stories' GUARDIAN
'Anyone interested in British art needs it' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN

William Feaver is a painter, curator, broadcaster and author, and was the art critic for the Observer for 23 years. He is on the Academic Board of the Royal Drawing School where he also tutors. He has produced films with Jake Auerbach including Lucian Freud Portraits. His book Pitmen Painters was adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. He curated Lucian Freud's 2002 retrospective at Tate Britain and in Venice, Barcelona and Los Angeles, and the 2012 exhibition of Freud's drawings in London and New York. He also curated the 2002 John Constable exhibition at the Grand Palais with Freud. He has sat, weekly, for Frank Auerbach since 2003. He lives in London.