Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads – The Courtauld Gallery, London

A series of painstakingly constructed sketches reveals much about the nature of the artist in Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads at the Courtauld Gallery.

Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads

It’s fascinating sometimes how much you can glean from a few simple works. In this case a series of charcoal sketches, completed by Frank Auerbach in the 1950s and 1960s. Bringing them together, along with a handful of the artist’s paintings, reveals much about his approach to art and added a new facet to my understanding of this painter of Post-War Britain.

You may know Frank Auerbach for his paintings. Like his friend Leon Kossoff, Auerbach is most associated with scenes in an incredibly thick impasto, figures or landscapes rising as if out of the depths of some kind of primeval mud (the image is helped by his frequent use of a limited range of earthy pigments). If you don’t know Auerbach for his paintings, there are a few images in this post to give you a sense of what I mean. So an exhibition of charcoal drawings is intriguing. Especially once you get inside, and realise that Auerbach’s painting and drawing techniques share key similarities. Like his exaggerated, built-up paint surfaces, his drawings point to an artist who reworks and reworks a subject before finishing it.

For these charcoal portraits, which are works in their own right rather than studies or sketches, he would draw his sitter one day, erase the work until it was a ghostly outline, and then start again the next day. Repeated over and over, this process has left scars on the paper. Patches, rubbings, built up charcoal. The drawings bear the marks of the artist in a more visceral sense than just the portraits he created. It adds to their introspective, moody quality.

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

The majority of the works on view at the Courtauld Gallery come from private collections. And, judging from the variety of frames (I like to look at these kind of things), many different private collections. So it’s quite a feat to have them here together. But what it demonstrates is how closely Auerbach focuses in on a single idea. There are fewer than two dozen works on view, and even fewer sitters. Multiple heads of Leon Kossoff, E. O. W. (Stella West), his future wife Julia Wolstenholme look out from the walls. I don’t say look at us, because they mostly pose with eyes downcast, holding something back either from Auerbach or from us, the audience. The direct gazes are reserved for the two excellent self portraits on view.

But when you think that each of these multiple portraits holds the memory of countless portraits within it, the charcoal heads become a testament to the innumerable hours of labour they represent. Because Auerbach also painted the reality of post-war London, it’s tempting to read something similar onto these works. Something about the gritty realism, the destruction and defiance. But for me it’s more about the act of depiction, the impossibility of committing truth to paper (or canvas, or something else), and the question of when an artwork is ‘done’.

Auerbach’s work isn’t to everyone’s taste. But The Charcoal Heads will be an introduction to a new element of his work for most, and is thus worth a visit even for those on the fence. As insights into the artistic process go, it’s illuminating. And as a meditation on the relationship between artist and sitter, perhaps even more so.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads on until 27 May 2024. More info here.