Frank Auerbach, Britain’s pre-eminent living figurative painter has produced some of the most resonant and inventive paintings of our t.mes . Famously depicting only subjects with whom he is extremely familiar, Auerbach has continually engaged social intimacy as a tool of expression in an effort to rid himself of the hesitancy caused by unfamiliarity. Whether depicting his well loved and frequently trodden paths of North London’s Camden, or his oft-revisited and frequently reimagined subjects, including Estella (Stella) Olive West (‘E.O.W.’), his wife Julia, son Jake, art historian Catherine Lampert, and professional model-turned-friend Julia Yardley Mills (‘J.Y.M.’).

Born in Berlin in 1931, Auerbach came to Britain as a refugee in 1939. In the war-torn London of the 1950s, Auerbach forged his reputation amongst a new generation of artists - including Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and Leon Kossoff - taking inspiration from the city, and people, around him. During his early career, Auerbach attended evening art classes taught by the painter David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic alongside his studies at St Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. In 1954 he took occupation of a studio in Camden Town (previously Kossoff’s) and has been there ever since. Under the tutelage of Bomberg, Auerbach was encouraged to pursue an organic and spontaneous approach to capturing what Bomberg termed the ‘spirit of the mass’.

Auerbach has often cited his admiration for Old and Modern Masters including Rembrandt, Rubens, and Picasso. In addition to acknowledging their ongoing influence, he is also inspired by the intimacy of their subjects. Visiting the National Gallery of London so often that he began to feel at home there, Auerbach studied the works of his predecessors, drawing and somet.mes s painting after their works.

Auerbach has always sought a deeper connection with his sitters. Using them again and again, he aims to dive below superficial likenesses, into the subject’s raw truth. Throughout his career, one figure above all is revisited, re-examined, torn apart and put back together by Auerbach - his close friend and model Juliet Yardley Mills (J.Y.M). Meeting for the first t.mes in 1956 when she was a professional model at Sidcup College of Art, J.Y.M maintained a strong presence within Auerbach’s work, sitting for him twice weekly, until her final appearance at the age of eighty in Head of JYM III (1997, Private collects ion). The two formed a close attachment throughout their forty year working relationship, despite the famously arduous nature of the sittings in which J.Y.M would sustain awkward poses for four hours or more. Auerbach once fondly noted that J.Y.M. “was brought into the world to be a model, she came and sat and it was not quite like anything else… She took poses that were natural to her… It became like a central spine of what one was doing”.

Auerbach’s artistic style is distinctive; thickly impastoed paintings and heavily worked drawings which have been reworked and scraped back over long periods of t.mes until the final desired effect is reached. Looking at this representation of J.Y.M, it is clear that Auerbach’s tireless desire to truly know his subject matter urges him to feverishly chip away at the sitter until he is able to reach its core.

The sincerity of Auerbach’s relationship with J.Y.M. is presently given life through his tempestuous yet luxurious handling of paint which is built up to produce peaks and troughs of rich hues and subtle undertones. The calm, structured brushstrokes of the background are contrasted sharply with the vibrant and exuberant handling of the central figure in a series of yellow and black/green passages which somehow combine to offer the viewer a fleeting glimpse of a reclining head. The deep, seemingly flowing layers of paint lie one upon the other as the artist attempts to almost sculpturally build the sitter’s presence onto the canvas surface creating highlights and shadows which further define the figure within.