For almost sixty years Auerbach has worked in the same modest studio in north London with diligence and an almost monastic absorption. Most of Auerbach’s models have been sitting for...
For almost sixty years Auerbach has worked in the same modest studio in north London with diligence and an almost monastic absorption. Most of Auerbach’s models have been sitting for him for decades, and so his oeuvre serves as an extended meditation on a select coterie of subjects. Reclining Head of Julia II is a portrait of Auerbach’s wife, Julia, whom he married in 1958, but split from soon after the birth of their son. However, after nearly two decades of being apart, they reunited in 1976. Whilst she was the subject of his earlier charcoal drawings, she only became a regular model for his paintings after the reunion. From that point onwards, she remained a loyal and intimate subject of the artist’s works, sitting for more portraits than any other person in Auerbach’s life. Most of Auerbach’s sitters pose every week, often over many years. He has said: “I find myself simply more engaged when I know the people. They get older and change; there is something touching about that, about recording something that’s getting on.”
Private Collection, Switzerland Marlborough Fine Art, London
Exhibitions
London, Ben Brown Fine Arts; Hong Kong, Ben Brown Fine Arts, Frank Auerbach / Tony Bevan, What is a Head? curated by Michael Peppiatt, December 2020 - July 2021, p. 16, 18, 33, illustrated in colour
Publications
William Feaver, Frank Auerbach: Revised and Expanded Edition, New York 2022, p. 399, no. 1037, illustrated in colour