Frank Auerbach
1960
Charcoal and chalk on paper
76.2 x 55.9 cm
Julia Wolstenholme (born 1933) and Frank Auerbach were both students at the Royal College of Art in the first part of the 1950s. They started a relationship and then married in 1958, having a child together that year. Auerbach completed two charcoal drawings of Julia in 1960, which are shown together here. This one was made first, its heavily worked and patched surface evidence of Auerbach’s struggle to depict his new sitter. Julia’s form comes into being through dramatic flashes and shafts of light, as if suddenly revealed. The couple split up around this time but reunited in 1976. Julia went on to model for Auerbach for more than forty years.