Frank Auerbach
1957
Charcoal and chalk on paper
65.6 x 52 cm
Reunited on this wall are the three portrait heads in charcoal Frank Auerbach made of his close friend and fellow artist Leon Kossoff (1926–2019). The two young men met as art students in 1949 and attended David Bomberg’s influential drawing classes together. Auerbach and Kossoff spurred each other on as they developed as artists. For a period, they sat for one another, taking it in turns to draw and be drawn over countless hours. In this work, Auerbach’s sweeping lines give the impression that the sitter’s form has materialised rapidly, whereas evidence of extensive reworking betrays the fact that the swift final drawing was in reality made on top of numerous earlier attempts.
The Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia
© the artist, courtesy of Frankie Rossi Art Projects, London