Frank Auerbach

Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., London
Private Collection, London (acquired directly from the above in 1983)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art, 23 June 2004, Lot 5
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., On View: Paintings by Auerbach, Bacon, Botero, Kitaj, Pasmore. Sculpture by Chadwick, Hepworth, Lipchitz, Moore, 1983
Venice, The British Pavilion, XLII Biennale Internazionale dell'Arte, Frank Auerbach, Paintings and Drawings 1977-1985, 1986, p. 44, no. 25, illustrated in colour
Hamburg, Kunstverein; Essen, Museum Folkwang, Frank Auerbach, 1986-87, p. 64, no. 31, illustrated in colour
Madrid, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Frank Auerbach: A Retrospective (1954-1985), 1987, p. 59, no. 30, illustrated in colour 

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the sky is slightly deeper and richer with some dusty rose tones in the original. The green at the bottom centre is slightly brighter in tone and the reds at the lower right are more deep raspberry. The catalogue illustration fails to fully convey the rich texture of the paint and impasto. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon close inspection, there is some very minor paint lifting to the red impasto brushstroke towards the top left edge, and another minute area of lifting to the orange paint along the top left edge. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1983 when the international appreciation of his work was soaring, To the Studios II dates from Frank Auerbach's most artistically fertile and sought after period. In a crescendo of rectilinear brushstrokes, it combines Frank Auerbach's two primary passions: painting and London. Seeing himself as a 'born again Londoner' who has embraced the city's cultural baggage and richly layered identity, his love affair with his adopted home represents one of the most significant attachments in his life. "I hate leaving my studio...I hate leaving London," he explained. "I don't think I have spent more than five weeks abroad since I was seven" (the artist cited in Robert Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London 1990, p. 83) This intense attachment to London – in particular the immediate environs of his studio – is powerfully expressed through the ongoing cycle of landscapes he has painted of it for most of his later life.

 

For over thirty years Auerbach has returned to this same view which leads our eye down the narrow alley which leads to his Mornington Crescent studio, entered by a gate to the left of the composition. Emerging from a pell-mell of brushstrokes and dramatic perspectival lines, this rare expression of his habitual pilgrimage to his studio is endowed with his emotional attachment to the city. Bathed in a warm, autumnal light, the rooftops of the city recede towards the horizon in the left centre of the picture. From the cacophony of brushstrokes, the topography of the city is barely perceptible.  

 

Auerbach infamously only paints people and places that he knows intimately, as familiarity allows him to express himself more freely, emancipated from the boundaries set by the subject. Painted indoors rather than en plein air, he uses small charcoal sketches made 'in situ' as the structural foundations for each landscape, from which the painting organically takes shape. As a consequence of this strict method, the landscape is built from a combination of memory, experience and passion rather than from a precise, single visual reality. This technique involves working and reworking the image, rubbing down the surface and starting again afresh to nurture a deliberate tension between analysis and expression; between the balance of objective depiction and expressive emotional realism. The finished version emerges weeks, often months, later, from an urgent crescendo of expressive brushwork in which each mark has a sense of chance exactitude and inexplicable correctness. In To the Studios II, beneath the geography of thickly-trowelled, geometric brushstrokes, the archaeological echoes of previous paint layers emerge from the furrowed landscape beneath. Poised between fiction and reality, this is a stunning example of one of Auerbach's most enduring themes.