Naked Portrait by Rose Boyt review

The artist’s daughter tells the compelling story of sitting for him, but too often gets lost in the detail

Autobiography tells the whole story of a life. It leaves nothing, or little, out. This is because autobiography is the province of famous people. The writer of autobiography – that is, the famous person – doesn’t need to work to gain the reader’s attention; that attention already exists. Therefore, all events are of interest. Memoir, on the other hand, must earn the reader’s attention, because the writer of memoir – that is, a person hitherto unknown to their audience – recognises her story is not of inherent importance. The way memoir makes a story is by leaving things out. It’s hard, disciplined work. Life feels infinite to each of us, like a massive eternally unfurling bolt of fabric – fabric that must be cut to make a story. This cutting is how a memoirist takes care of her reader. Structure in the memoir, then, has to do with what is omitted.

Rose Boyt’s new book ranges across her life in a story that is shaped – very loosely– by three experiences of sitting for her father, the painter Lucian Freud. The first sitting occurs when she’s 18 and posing for the portrait that gives this book its title. The painting shows the author, naked, sprawled in an attitude of abandon, her legs spread and a blanket twined around her feet as though she is recovering from sexual athletics. Boyt writes: “My father didn’t want to work from me again after the completion of the naked portrait. I think he had done all he could – the painting said everything …” There is, indeed, a terrifying completeness to the work; Freud’s daughter has been represented to the utmost.