#39. Geordie Greig ~ Breakfast With Lucian Freud

Geordie Greig, is an English journalist. He has been the editor-in-chief of The Independent since January 2023, and was the editor of the Daily Mail from 2018 to 2021 and the Mail on Sunday from 2012 to 2018. He was taken to a Freud exhibition as a teenager and became fascinated by the man. As a student journalist he tried repeatedly to get the notoriously private and infamously confrontational Freud to agree to an interview, but always without response. Many years later, while editor of Tatler, he did convince Freud to write a short piece about painting for the magazine; he was also successful some years later in convincing him to revisit this manifesto' and update it. But the basis for his book 'Breakfast With Lucian' is that many years later Greig went on to become a regular breakfast companion of Freud's at the artist's favourite Local restaurant, Clarke's, just a few streets away from the eighteenth century townhouse that was Freud's home and studio in Kensington. It was here during the hour or two before Freud's long working days began, while the restaurant was closed to all but Freud and his guests, that they would meet, usually with Freud's assistant David Dawson, for food, gossip, conversation and confidences. In this podcast we discuss his time and friendship with Lucian Freud.