Frank Auerbach
1961
Charcoal and chalk on paper
76.2 x 55.9 cm
All three of the charcoal heads Frank Auerbach made of his cousin Gerda Boehm are brought together in this exhibition. Auerbach recalled that, in her attitude and appearance, Boehm carried a melancholic sense of her previous life in fashionable pre-war Berlin before she was forced to flee to London to avoid Jewish persecution. In this powerful drawing, Auerbach conveys a feeling of pathos and introspection. Boehm’s elaborate hairdo seems to weigh on her head as she adopts a faraway look.