In 1946/47 he painted in Paris and Greece. Freud had work published in Horizon magazine in 1939 and 1943. In 1944 his paintings were hung at the Lefevre Gallery. Between 1949 and 1954 he was a visiting tutor at the Slade School of Fine Art, London.

In 1951 his Interior at Paddington (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) won a prize at the Festival of Britain, and since then he has built up a reputation as one of the most powerful contemporary figurative painters. Portraits and nudes are his specialties.

In 1948 he married Kitty Garman, daughter of the British sculptor Jacob Epstein. In 1952 he married Caroline Blackwood. Freud had a studio in Paddington for 30 years before moving to one in Holland Park.

His first retrospective exhibition, organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain, was held in 1974 at the Hayward Gallery in London.