The Greatest? Artists On Freud

David Hockney

He is a great painter partly because he is one of the few painters who actually looks very intently at the world and gives an account of his looking. It's rather thrilling. In a way, there's lots of art now that is not about looking, and that is another reason why we are drawn to his work. He is a person who looks and is excited about looking. He shows how that perceptually looking at something in front of you is not a tired old art, but is a fresh one. The older he gets, the better he seems.

Peter Doig

I think that his paintings are incredibly inventive, and sometimes the invention in each of his paintings is overlooked because there is such an emphasis on him being a figure painter. He is constantly inventing new ways of describing things that aren't just flesh: the way he paints the carpet and walls and stains and all of the other stuff. I really enjoy looking at that aspect of his work and think he must get a lot of pleasure out of that type of invention.

Gavin Turk

In a nutshell... I think he just paints the figure in such an awkward way that it reveals something about himself and the subject.

Paula Rego

I admire him. Throughout his work, he seems to be touching the figures rather than observing them. They are naked but you can see so much, even though there are no clothes to inform you what might be going on, or what the personality is. It's minimal but riveting – you're curious about the person and although they're naked, they reveal so much: they never become nudes without a story. I think it's the way he wraps them up in paint and the way the paint describes them that is what gives them that presence. It's a marvellous achievement, and no-one has ever done it. It always makes me curious. He is a remarkable artist.

Peter Blake

I do think that he is a great painter and I particularly like the early work – that's bound to infuriate him because it's always extremely irritating when people say that. The thing is, I like that highly finished style. He is at his best with pictures like the family group based on the Watteau: he really is an extraordinary painter. And I suppose the thing is that, as the oldest figurative artist, he has the longevity.

Mark Quinn

I wish I could paint like Lucian Freud because his painting is everything about why painting has not been displaced by photography: it's mediated through the human mind and includes the element of time. The self-portrait where he is standing in his boots stands up to everything done by Rembrandt. I think he gets better and better as he gets older.