| 1922 | December 8: Lucian Freud is born in Berlin. His father is Ernst (an architect and the youngest son of Sigmund Freud) and his mother is Lucie (née Brach) the daughter of a grain merchant. The family live near the Tiergarten and spend summers at Hiddensee near Rügen on the Baltic Sea and on Freud's maternal grandfather's estate near Kotbus. |
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| 1933 | Freud and his family move to London. They are not refugees but emigrate voluntarily. Freud goes to school at Dartington Hall, Devon and Bryanston in Dorset. |
| 1938 | Sigmund Freud arrives in London. Freud’s drawings are included in an exhibition of children’s art at Guggenheim Jeune, Cork Street. |
| 1939 | Becomes a naturalised British subject. His grandfather, Sigmund Freud, dies. Studies for a term at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London then at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham, under Cedric Morris. |
| 1940 | Spends the winter in a retired miner’s house in Capel Curig, North Wales with David Kentish, a school friend from Bryanston who subsequently joined him at the East Anglian School. They are later joined by the poet, Stephen Spender. |
| 1941 | Serves in the Merchant Navy on a North Atlantic Convoy. He is invalided out and returns to Cedric Morris’s School at Benton End, Suffolk. |
| 1942 | Moves to Abercorn Place, St. John’s Wood. Drawings exhibited at Alex Reid and Lefevre Gallery, London. |
| 1943 | Moves to Delamere Terrace, Paddington. |
| 1944 | First one man show at Alex Reid and Lefevre Gallery, London. |
| 1945 | Visits the Scilly Isles. |
| 1946 | Spends two months in the summer in Paris where he makes his first two etchings, The Bird and Chelsea Bun. Spends five months on the island of Poros, Greece (with John Craxton). |
| 1947 | Shows at the London Gallery. |
| 1948 | Marries Kitty Garman, the daughter of Kathleen Garman and the sculptor Jacob Epstein. Moves to Clifton Hill, Maida Vale. |
| 1949-1954 | Visiting tutor at the Slade School of Art, London. |
| 1950 | Hanover Gallery, London. |
| 1951 | Wins Arts Council Great Britain Purchase Prize for Interior in Paddington 1951 (now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) exhibited in Sixty Paintings for ’51, part of the Festival of Britain. |
| 1952 | Divorced Hanover Gallery, London. |
| 1953 | Marries Lady Caroline Blackwood. |
| 1954 | Represents Britain, along with Ben Nicholson and Francis Bacon at the 27th Venice Biennale. Some thoughts on painting published in Encounter Magazine. |
| 1955 | Second prize in the Daily Express Young Artist’s Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London with Hotel Bedroom 1954 (now in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada). |
| 1957 | Divorced |
| 1958 | Marlborough Fine Art, London. |
| 1962 | Moves to Clarendon Crescent, London W11. |
| 1963 | Marlborough Fine Art, London. |
| 1967 | Moves to Gloucester Terrace, London W2. |
| 1968 | Marlborough Fine Art, London. |
| 1970 | Death of his father, Ernst Freud. |
| 1972 | Moves to Thorngate Road, Maida Vale. Completes The Painter’s Mother the first in a series of painting ending with The Painter’s Mother – Dead 1989 (The Cleveland Museum of Art). Leaves Marlborough Fine Art. Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. |
| 1974 | First retrospective at Hayward Gallery, London and touring. |
| 1977 | Moves to Holland Park. |
| 1978 | Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. |
| 1979 | Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo. |
| 1981 | A New Spirit in Painting, Royal Academy of Arts London. Eight Figurative Artists, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. |
| 1982 | Lucian Freud, monograph by Lawrence Gowing published. Returns to etching and makes 15 etchings. Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. |
| 1983 | Created Companion of Honour. Leaves Anthony d’Offay Gallery with James Kirkman who continues as his agent. |
| 1984 | The Hard Won Image, Tate Gallery, London. The Proper Study, Lalit Akademi, Delhi and Bombay. |
| 1987 | Selects images The Artist’s Eye for the National Gallery, London. |
| 1987-1988 | A School of London organised by the British Council at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo tours to Louisiana (Denmark), Venice and Düsseldorf. Retrospective organised by the British Council at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. This is the first major retrospective of Freud’s work shown outside Britain. Tours to Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, the Hayward Gallery London and Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. |
| 1989 | Death of Freud’s mother, Lucie. |
| 1991-1992 | Lucian Freud, Paintings and Works on Paper 1940-1991 organised by the British Council at Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome. Tours to Tate Gallery Liverpool: Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts: Otani Memorial Museum, Nishinomiya: Setagaya Arts Museum, Tokyo and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. |
| 1992 | Represented by William Acquavella, New York. |
| 1993 | Awarded the Order of Merit. |
| 1993-1994 | Lucian Freud’s Recent Work at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. It tours to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. |
| 1994 | Recent paintings hung at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. |
| 1995 | From London: Bacon, Freud, Kossolf, Andrews, Auerbach, Kitaj organised by the British Council at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. |
| 1996 | Lucian Freud: Paintings and Etchings at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. Lucian Freud, new work at Acquavella Galleries, New York. |
| 1997 | Lucian Freud: Early Work at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. |
| 1998 | Lucian Freud: Some New Paintings, Tate Gallery, London. |
| 2000 | Lucian Freud: recent work 1997-2000, Acquavella Galleries, New York. |
| 2001 | Donates portrait HM Queen Elizabeth II 2001 to the Royal Collection. |
| 2002 | Lucian Freud, Tate Britain curated by William Feaver. Tours to Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Constable selected by Freud at the Grand Palais, Paris. |
| 2004 | Recent work shown at the Wallace Collection, London and Acquavella Galleries, New York. |
| 2005 | Lucian Freud at the Museo Correr, Venice during the Venice Biennale. |
| 2006 | Shows with Frank Auerbach at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Acquavella Galleries, New York. |
| 2007 | Lucian Freud at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin curated by Catherine Lampert. Tours to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark and the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague. Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings at the Museum of Modern Art, New York curated by Starr Figura. |
| 2010 | Lucian Freud: L’Atelier at the Pompidou Centre, Paris curated by Cecile Debray. |
| 2011 | Dies 20 July |
| 2012 | Lucian Freud Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery curated by Sarah Howgate. Lucian Freud Drawings at Blain Southern in London and Acquavella Galleries, New York. |
