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Lot Essay
Frank Auerbach’s Head of David Landau masterfully captures his friend, the businessman, art historian and former trustee of the National Gallery. The portrait emerges out of a series of expressive charcoal marks, his spontaneous approach affording the work a vitality. The treatment of the face, delineated through a rough outline, gives a wonderful sense of the sitter’s personality. Writing about his experience sitting for the artist, Landau describes how ‘Frank takes so much trouble to convey our lives and our existence, it makes us feel we matter’ (Landau, quoted in H. Rothschild, ‘Frank Auerbach: An interview with one of our greatest living painters’, The Telegraph, 30 September 2013).
This spontaneity of the picture is at odds with Auerbach’s process of production. After each sitting, the artist would erase his drawing, leaving behind a spectre of past iterations of the portrait. Through this repeated process of creation and destruction, Landau’s head emerges out of the darkness of the charcoal. Interestingly, more so than his paintings, the process of erasing the image has a profound effect upon the materiality of the paper’s surface; the final drawing showcases the lengthy process of creation. The artist repeated this process time and time over, until one drawing resonated with the artist where he believed that he had captured the essence of his sitter. Landau describes the disturbing effect of this vigorous process, writing how it was somewhat off-putting that one week ‘you think this was a really beautiful picture and yet it wasn’t good enough for him. Next time you arrive it will be a scraped down ghost’ (Landau, quoted in J. O’Mahony, ‘Surfaces and Depths’, The Guardian, 15 September 2001). Auerbach remained strict with himself, the intensity of these weekly meetings instilled in him an obsessive desire to capture the perfect image. Through such intense period of study, the artist built up strong emotional bonds that allowed him to so brilliantly capture Landau, revealing his confidence and self-assured manner. ‘I find myself simply more engaged when I know people. They get older and change; there is something touching about that, about recording something that’s getting on’ (Landau, quoted in H. Rothschild, ‘Frank Auerbach’, The Telegraph, 30 September 2013).
This spontaneity of the picture is at odds with Auerbach’s process of production. After each sitting, the artist would erase his drawing, leaving behind a spectre of past iterations of the portrait. Through this repeated process of creation and destruction, Landau’s head emerges out of the darkness of the charcoal. Interestingly, more so than his paintings, the process of erasing the image has a profound effect upon the materiality of the paper’s surface; the final drawing showcases the lengthy process of creation. The artist repeated this process time and time over, until one drawing resonated with the artist where he believed that he had captured the essence of his sitter. Landau describes the disturbing effect of this vigorous process, writing how it was somewhat off-putting that one week ‘you think this was a really beautiful picture and yet it wasn’t good enough for him. Next time you arrive it will be a scraped down ghost’ (Landau, quoted in J. O’Mahony, ‘Surfaces and Depths’, The Guardian, 15 September 2001). Auerbach remained strict with himself, the intensity of these weekly meetings instilled in him an obsessive desire to capture the perfect image. Through such intense period of study, the artist built up strong emotional bonds that allowed him to so brilliantly capture Landau, revealing his confidence and self-assured manner. ‘I find myself simply more engaged when I know people. They get older and change; there is something touching about that, about recording something that’s getting on’ (Landau, quoted in H. Rothschild, ‘Frank Auerbach’, The Telegraph, 30 September 2013).