Packed with noisy enthusiasm, punchy arguments and verbal agility... An excessively gifted communicator, [Schama] knows how to sweep facts and argument into a powerful, fluent narrative

Power of Art feels as if it has been written in one breathless burst of enthusiasm, in a prose style that crackles like electricity

A stunning work, resounding with profound insights which rivet the attention... A beautifully conceived and presented book from the professor of art history at Columbia University, New York. There must be few others in the world who could equal it

Powerfully vivid story-telling... Schama is a powerful communicator, and it is a joy to witness him explore the extraordinary evolution of eight world-class works of art

Politics, religion, war, sex and love are the inspirations behind the paintings chosen, and each takes on a new life under Schama's gaze

The author's powerful storytelling technique in this book... makes both the artist and his art spring to life

In this frank memoir, the British journalist Georgie Greig recounts his regular meetings with Freud.

Startlingly frank.

Both tender biography and blunt revelation. In that it is the first to reveal the man and the essential symbiosis of heterosexual obsession…with the messy business of painting, it is the most important book yet written on Freud.

A riveting anecdotal portrait… Everywhere there are fascinating nuggets… A fond, fair-minded, thankfully non-judgmental and pretty full portrait of a person shaped around the people – and most saliently the lovers – who came into his life.

Greig has penetrated deep into the labyrinth of Freud’s private life. The result is a gripping page-turner about an endlessly fascinating and extraordinary man.

Compelling and fascinating… It is a book fill of clues – generous with routes to an understanding of this massively difficult and hugely gifted individual.

[It] will be on many an art lover's Christmas list this year.

Fond and faintly disturbing.

A rattlingly readable effort... Greig does a fine job revealing tales one suspects the artist may have wished to keep private.

Anybody with an ear for a good story, never mind an eye for fine art, will be beguiled.

Greig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was answered with great candour and judiciousness… Wry, dry and completely beguiling.

[Greig’s] perceptive observations and eagle’s eye for detail immediately drew me in.

The Freud who emerges in this account is a slippery figure, not only for journalists who tried to explain him but also for his intimates.

Mr Greig's is a compelling portrait of a complete amoralist who became a monstre sacré.

Greig’s portrait glimmers with his eye for the telling detail.

A mesmerising book, seamlessly crafted, totally absorbing, and impossible to put down.

A very readable and enjoyable book, full of salacious detail of the artist and his fascinating life.

This intimate biography of Lucian Freud spares no blushes in its account of one of Britain's greatest painters, tracing his life and work through candid revelations about his views on art, relationships and family.

Building up brush stroke by brush stroke, Greig has produced a three-dimensional study of equal candour. Part demon, part genius, it is an absorbing portrait of the complexity of a strange human character.

An unapologetic mixture of intelligent perception and high gossip... It is, overall, more revealing than anything about [Freud] yet written.

I am captivated by this fascinating memoir... It's an extraordinary read.

Candid and intelligent.

A gripping, page-turning vision of Lucian Freud that penetrates deep into the artist's private life.

Utterly engrossing and lavishly illustrated