 |
| Frank Auerbach To the Studios 1990-91 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"Up to the late 1970s Frank Auerbach, one of the so-called School of London painters, took as his principal landscape subjects the park at Primrose Hill and the corner of Camden High Street and Mornington Crescent. In 1977 he added a third motif: the view of the entrance to his studio in North London. Auerbach began working at this studio in 1954. It is located in an alley in Camden and was built at the turn of the nineteenth century."
 |
| Frank Auerbach J.Y.M. Seated, No. I 1981 oil on panel Tate, London |
"The subject of this painting is Juliet Yardley Mills (J.Y.M.), Auerbach's principal model since 1963. Auerbach has completed over seventy portraits and studies of Mills. This, the first of three paintings of her executed in 1981, was completed in about twenty sittings. As in nearly all his studies of her, Mills is shown looking out of the picture and is seen slightly from below. In contrast to Auerbach's earlier paintings, this portrait demonstrates the freedom of drawing and fluid movement of paint which characterise his later style."
 |
| Frank Auerbach Rimbaud 1976 oil on panel Tate, London |
 |
| Frank Auerbach Rimbaud 1975-76 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"This portrait of the nineteenth century French poet Rimbaud was the result of a commission from David Wilkie, a collector who owned a number of Auerbach's paintings. Auerbach was initially asked for a painting based on the sculpture Ecstasy of St Teresa by the Renaissance master Bernini. Wilkie had seen this work (in the Cornaro chapel in the church of S. Maria Vittoria in Rome) during an army posting in Italy at the end of the Second World War. However, when Auerbach declined this commission, Wilkie instead asked for a portrait of Rimbaud, whose poetry he admired. Auerbach responded by transplanting a portrait of Rimbaud into the setting of the Cornaro chapel in place of the Bernini sculpture."
 |
| Frank Auerbach Bacchus and Ariadne 1971 oil on panel Tate, London |
"Auerbach based this painting on Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne (1522-23) in the National Gallery, London. Titian depicts the Roman god of wine with his dissolute followers, catching sight of Ariadne, whom he married and transformed into a constellation of stars. Adapting the figures, trees and clouds of the original painting into a vivid network of lines and gestural brushwork, Auerbach conveys a powerful sense of energy and movement. "I mean to make it as extreme as possible," he told the collector David Wilkie, who commissioned the painting."
 |
| Frank Auerbach The Origin of the Great Bear 1967-68 oil on panel Tate, London |
"The subject matter of The Origin of the Great Bear is the myth of Callisto as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The story relates how Callisto, one of Diana's warrior nymphs, was raped by Jupiter while resting in a quiet grove, and then banished by Diana for breaking her vow of chaste fidelity. Having borne Jupiter's child, Arcas, Callisto is then transformed into a bear by Juno, Jupiter's wife, out of vengeance for submitting to her husband. Years later, Arcas, while out hunting, encounters a bear, not knowing that it is his long lost mother in ursine form. As Callisto gazes at her son, Arcas reaches for his spear, but Jupiter stays the hunter's hand. They are both lifted into the heavens and set in the sky as the neighbouring constellations Ursa Major (The Great Bear) and Ursa Minor (also known as Arcturus)."
 |
| Frank Auerbach Figure on a Bed 1967-70 oil on panel Tate, London |
"The model in the Figure on a Bed series was J.Y.M. (Juliet Yardley Mills), a professional life model whom Auerbach had met in 1956 at Sidcup College of Art in Kent. She began modelling for him in 1957 and was the first person to be painted in his studio. The mid-1960s were a period of transition in Auerbach's work. A recent contract with the Beaux Arts Gallery, London enabled him to buy expensive coloured pigments for the first time, resulting in a move away from his exclusive use of ochres, bland and white. Brilliant red, green, turquoise and yellow feature particularly in paintings made in 1966-67."
 |
| Frank Auerbach Primrose Hill 1967-68 oil on panel Tate, London |
 |
| Frank Auerbach Study after Titian I 1965 oil on panel Tate, London |
 |
| Frank Auerbach Study after Titian II 1965 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"Both this painting and the related work Study after Titian I were inspired by Titian's Tarquin and Lucretia. Although the original work exists in two versions, one being in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Wilkie specified that the version in question was the one in the Akademie der Bildenden Künst in Vienna. Titian's subject is Tarquin's rape of Lucretia. Auerbach created his versions of that image by working from a reclining female model who adopted the pose of Lucretia, and from a drawing made from a reproduction of the original work."
 |
| Frank Auerbach The Sitting Room 1964 oil on panel Tate, London |
"The Sitting Room was painted in Auerbach's Camden Town studio, which he has occupied since the 1950s. The painting shows the sitting room in the Brentford house of Auerbach's friend Stella West (E.O.W.). West, the daughter of the philosopher O.S. Wauchope, was Auerbach's model for most of his nudes and female heads prior to 1973. This house was a special place to the artist and during the years 1963-65 he went there three times a week, in the evenings, to paint E.O.W."
 |
| Frank Auerbach Head of E.O.W. I 1960 oil on panel Tate, London |
 |
| Frank Auerbach Small Head of E.O.W. 1957-58 oil on panel Tate, London |
 |
| Frank Auerbach E.O.W. Nude 1953-54 oil on canvas Tate, London |
– all quoted passages based on notes by curators at the Tate in London