Girl with a Kitten
- Artist: Lucian Freud
- Date: 1947
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 410 x 307 x 18 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Girl with a Kitten” by Lucian Freud, painted in 1947. It’s one of eight portraits Freud made of his first wife, Kathleen “Kitty” Garman. Freud was notorious for standing just inches from his subjects, and here that intimacy shows in every brushstroke – the glint in her pupils, the static energy of her wavy hair, and the way her white knuckles grip the kitten’s neck with an almost surgical precision.
The composition is psychologically charged. Kitty stares into the distance, her face tight with something unresolved, while the kitten looks straight at us, a silent witness to the tension. The portrait captures a moment of control and vulnerability, hinting at the complex relationship between artist and sitter. It’s a striking example of Freud’s early portrait style, rooted in the New Objectivity tradition of sharp, unsentimental realism.
First exhibited in London in 1947, it later appeared at the Venice Biennale under the title “Girl with Cat.” The painting has remained a touchstone for discussions of Freud’s early work, illustrating how he turned the act of portraiture into a psychological study.
See it in person
Girl with a Kitten is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
