Frank Auerbach

Malborough Fine Art, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2004

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is softer in the original, with more pink undertones showing throughout. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are several minute stable drying cracks to the top layer of light brown paint beneath the centre of the upper edge. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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Head of Catherine Lampert is a mature and insightful portrait of a subject whom Frank Auerbach has painted regularly since she first sat for him in May 1978, shortly after curating the celebrated retrospective exhibition of the artist's work at the Hayward Gallery that year. Through the process of organising the exhibition and writing the catalogue introduction, Lampert built up a strong relationship with the artist based on her respect and admiration for his work, and she has been one of his preferred models to work from ever since. One of only a small number of sitters whom Auberbach regularly paints, Lampert visited the artist frequently on Monday evenings for over twenty years. Auerbach insists on limiting his human subjects to a handful of family and close friends that he knows intimately - a modus operandi that has given him the freedom of familiarity, with which to capture likeness in an expressive rather than representational manner. Lampert describes Auerbach's artistic "idiom" as being "very painterly energetic".

For Auerbach painting has always been a refuge and a form of expression. "My first consideration on getting up in the morning every day of my life has always been about painting" (The artist cited in: Robert Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London 1990, p. 83). In the present work Auerbach's confident thick brushstrokes distribute large quantities of paint from his sombre palette on the sculptural surface. The artist typically defines the features of his subjects with thick black lines and shapes their physicality through a prismatic use of colours. Auerbach's signature expressionistic style emerges from his compositions through this distinguished and delicate union between form and colour. The portrait needs to evolve through numerous sittings in order for Auerbach to capture exactly the subject's emotions. The result is an indelible record of the tangible familiarity between artist and muse.