Celia Paul (born 11 November 1959) was born in India of British missionary parents and moved to England when she was five. She is a painter, best known for her intense, haunting portraits of her close family and herself. Paul lives and works in London, England.
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Biography
Celia Paul was born on 11 November 1959 in Thiruvananthapuram, South India.
From 1976 to 1981 she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where she met Lucian Freud who was a visiting tutor and with whom she had a relationship from ages 18 to 28. He was 37 years older than she was.
Paul was represented by Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London from 1984 to 1986 and then by Marlborough Fine Art, London from 1989 to 2014. She has been represented by Victoria Miro, London since May 2014.
A solo exhibition of new work by the artist titled Celia Paul: Memory and Desire took place at Victoria Miro in London, 6 April–14 May 2022. The exhibition coincided with the publication of Letters to Gwen John, a new book by the artist published by Jonathan Cape and New York Review Books which centres on a series of letters addressed to the painter Gwen John (1876–1939), who has long been a tutelary spirit for Paul.
Paul wrote her autobiography Self-Portrait, which was released in 2019 and well received by newspapers, including The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Review of Books.
Style and influences
Celia Paul's paintings are intimate depictions of people and places that she knows well. She does no portrait commissions. Her paintings have a haunting otherworldly feeling. "Throughout all her work the sense of sight is associated with a world of potential, within. This is how a sense of the ineffable is able to be communicated". Paul worked on a series of paintings of her mother from 1977 to 2007, and since then she has concentrated on her four sisters, especially her sister Kate. "[T]he real strength of Paul's project becomes apparent with time: the concentrated emotional energy of chronicling a family and its subtle shifts over many years". Recently her work has taken a new direction, focusing on landscapes and the sea. She "is a creator of subterranean images. Her canvases are Impressionism in conversation with modernism — objective but felt".
Paul lives and works in her studio which is directly opposite the main gates of the British Museum.
Personal life
From the age of 18 to 28, Paul was in a romantic relationship with Lucian Freud. She has a son with him, Frank Paul (born 10 December 1984), who is also an artist. She was married to Steven Kupfer from 2011 until his death in 2021.
Solo exhibitions
Celia Paul: Innervisions, Gladstone, New York, April 28 — June 13, 2026
Celia Paul: Colony of Ghosts, Victoria Miro, London, 14 March – 17 April 2025
Celia Paul: Memory and Desire, Victoria Miro, London, 6 April — 14 May 2022
Celia Paul: Self-Portrait, an extended reality (XR) exhibition on Vortic Collect, Victoria Miro, London, UK, 10 November — 12 December 2020
Celia Paul: My Studio, an extended reality (XR) exhibition on Vortic Collect, Victoria Miro, London, UK, 26 June — 25 July 2020
Celia Paul, Victoria Miro, London, 13 November – 20 December 2019
The Hilton Als Series: Celia Paul, Yale Center for British Art, 3 April — 12 August 2018, traveled to the Huntington, San Marino, 9 February – 8 July 2019
The Sea and The Mirror, Victoria Miro Venice, 23 September — 21 December 2017
Desdemona for Hilton by Celia, Victoria Miro, London, 16 September — 29 October 2016
Desdemona for Celia by Hilton, Gallery Met, New York, September 22, 2015 — January 2, 2016. Collaboration with The New Yorker staff writer Hilton Als.
Celia Paul, Victoria Miro, 12 June — 2 August 2014
Gwen John and Celia Paul: Painters in Parallel, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 2012–2013
Celia Paul, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 2005
Group exhibitions
"Pictus Porrectus: Reconsidering the Full-Length Portrait", curated by Dodie Kazanjian and Alison Gingeras, Isaac Bell House, Newport, Rhode Island, 1 July – 2 October 2022
"Me, Myself, I – Artists’ Self-Portraits", Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, 2 May – 19 June 2022
"Figuration", Marlborough Gallery, London, 17 March – 29 April 2022
"The Sublime in Nature", Daniel Malarkey, London, 16 June – 10 July 2021
"I See You", an extended reality (XR) exhibition on Vortic Collect, Victoria Miro, London, 2 June – 4 July 2020
"Parley for the Oceans x Vortic", online exhibition on Vortic, 2 October – 2 November 2020
"Works on Paper", Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen, 26 January – 6 April 2019
"Unparalleled Journey through Contemporary Art of Past 50 Years", Rubell Museum, Miami, USA, on view since 4 December 2019
"Contemporary Dialogues with Tintoretto", Palazzo Ducale and Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro, Venice, 20 October 2018 – 24 February 2019
"Studio Prints: a Survey", Marlborough Fine Art, London, 30 November – 21 December 2018
"All Too Human", Tate Britain, 28 February – 26 August 2018; travelling to Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 9 October 2018 – 13 January 2019
"House Work", Victoria Miro Mayfair, London, 1 February – 18 March 2017
Films and interviews
Celia Paul: Private View, directed by Jake Auerbach, 2019
In Conversation with Hilton Als, Victoria Miro, London, 8 July 2014
Artists at War: Walter Sickert, directed by Danny Katz, 2014
Woman's Hour, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 1 October 2012
The Last Art Film, directed by Jake Auerbach, 2010
Lucian Freud, directed by Randall Wright, 2011
Lucian Freud, directed by Jake Auerbach, 2004
Public collections
British Museum, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Saatchi Collection, London; Abbot Hall, Kendal; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut; Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen; Frissiras Museum, Athens; Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick, Germany; Morgan Library, New York; New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge.