The exhibition is curated by Catherine Lampert, specialist on the work of Freud, a friend of the artist and former Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, where she already organised a touring survey of Freud's work in 1993. I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her dedication to this project and for bringing such a personal and studied exhibition to fruition. The design of this catalogue is the work of Herman Lelie and I am glad to see that again he has produced a very beautiful object. I would like to thank our partners in the exhibition - the Louisiana Museum,Humlebaek, and the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, particularly Poul Erik Tojner, Helle Crenzien and Eva Lund at the Louisiana;and Wim van Krimpen and Franz Kaiser at the Gemeente Museum.I would like to thank the staff at IMMA who organised the exhibition,particularly Maeve Butler and Sean Kissane.