On the heels of the Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Gallery in London, the Thyssen Museum in Madrid welcomes a selection of works by a painter who made the traditional sitting with a model – in famously protracted sessions – the cornerstone of his art, and managed to reawaken the market’s interest in the figurative. With subjects ranging from Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza himself to anonymous individuals within Freud’s circle or among his scandalous stream of paramours, his portraits perhaps suggest a certain psychological bent, even though he always denied any influence of his grandfather, Sigmund. But above all they unsentimentally present the morbidity of flesh and the decadence of bodies.