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Lot Essay
‘The apparent distortion of the figure invites comparison with Francis Bacon. Bacon’s lying figures, however, always occupy an artificial stage which seems to have been coldly painted as an arena within which the act of painting is performed. Auerbach treats the space, the bed and the figure with an equal intensity.’
– Colin Wiggins
‘I think all good painting looks as though the painting has escaped from the thicket of prepared positions and has entered some sort of freedom where it exists on its own, and by its own laws, and inexplicably has got free of all possible explanations.’
–Frank Auerbach
Frank Auerbach’s Figure Seated on Bed II, 1969, is an intimate and evocative composition in luscious paint. Bands of colour articulate the imprecise details of this bedroom scene: pine-coloured walls, a darkened floor, and an olive and white bed. At the top of the canvas is a thin triangle of a blackened-burgundy. Upon the bed sits a figure, vividly and tumultuously composed of thick orange and black paint. Auerbach’s distortions have been likened to Francis Bacon’s figures, which often seem to transmogrify. Unlike Bacon, however, warmth emanates from an Auerbach portrait; art historian and critic T. J. Clark has observed that Auerbach, in his figure studies, was after ‘not a likeness so much as a presence’ (T. Clark, ‘On Frank Auerbach’, Frank Auerbach, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2015, p. 14). In Figure Seated on Bed II, the person is more understood than recognizable, perhaps because Auerbach only paints his friends. Still, although the form may seem incomprehensible, prolonged engagement brings out its details, including tightly crossed legs and clasped hands, and this act of discovery and unfolding is central to the experience of Auerbach’s work. Indeed, in the rapid strokes a person’s whole essence awaits; more than a representation, Figure Seated on Bed II is the celebration of an individual life.
Auerbach is affiliated with the School of London, a circle of figurative painters including Michael Andrews, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, and Bacon. The years prior to the painting of Figure Seated on Bed II saw a complete change in Auerbach’s figuration. Whereas before, he had built up his forms, now limbs and heads were completely absorbed by his expressive painting, ‘laced together by…graphic energy’ (R. Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London, 1989, p. 165). Tactility became a paramount concern. In Figure Seated on Bed II, the substantial, lavish brushwork is overwhelmed with dimensionality and potency, and for Auerbach, impasto has always seemed as much a subject as the imagery itself. As the artist himself explained, ‘It is the paradox of trying to make a gesture on a flat surface about a haptic, a tangible experience’ (F. Auerbach interviewed by C. Lampert, 1978, printed in, Frank Auerbach, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2015, p. 151).
In Figure Seated on Bed II, the intensely concentrated colouration thrums with life, and Auerbach considers this negotiation with depth and physicality to be the essential question of painting. Accordingly, he has found inspiration from a whole array of painters including Rembrandt, Ingres, Monet, and de Kooning, each of whom, in his own way, has endeavoured to record the world’s matter and motion. ‘All my paintings,’ Auerbach notes ‘are the end result of hundreds of transmutations' (Auerbach, quoted in C. Lampert, N. Rosenthal and I. Carlisle, Frank Auerbach Paintings and Drawings 1954-2001, exh. cat., Royal Academy, London 2001, p. 26). The marks and motions in Figure Seated on Bed II are, as such, both known and incomprehensible, and, in hoping to pin down the world, Auerbach has rendered an impression, at once enigmatic, striking and convincing, a fleeting movement, an evolving self.
– Colin Wiggins
‘I think all good painting looks as though the painting has escaped from the thicket of prepared positions and has entered some sort of freedom where it exists on its own, and by its own laws, and inexplicably has got free of all possible explanations.’
–Frank Auerbach
Frank Auerbach’s Figure Seated on Bed II, 1969, is an intimate and evocative composition in luscious paint. Bands of colour articulate the imprecise details of this bedroom scene: pine-coloured walls, a darkened floor, and an olive and white bed. At the top of the canvas is a thin triangle of a blackened-burgundy. Upon the bed sits a figure, vividly and tumultuously composed of thick orange and black paint. Auerbach’s distortions have been likened to Francis Bacon’s figures, which often seem to transmogrify. Unlike Bacon, however, warmth emanates from an Auerbach portrait; art historian and critic T. J. Clark has observed that Auerbach, in his figure studies, was after ‘not a likeness so much as a presence’ (T. Clark, ‘On Frank Auerbach’, Frank Auerbach, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2015, p. 14). In Figure Seated on Bed II, the person is more understood than recognizable, perhaps because Auerbach only paints his friends. Still, although the form may seem incomprehensible, prolonged engagement brings out its details, including tightly crossed legs and clasped hands, and this act of discovery and unfolding is central to the experience of Auerbach’s work. Indeed, in the rapid strokes a person’s whole essence awaits; more than a representation, Figure Seated on Bed II is the celebration of an individual life.
Auerbach is affiliated with the School of London, a circle of figurative painters including Michael Andrews, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, and Bacon. The years prior to the painting of Figure Seated on Bed II saw a complete change in Auerbach’s figuration. Whereas before, he had built up his forms, now limbs and heads were completely absorbed by his expressive painting, ‘laced together by…graphic energy’ (R. Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London, 1989, p. 165). Tactility became a paramount concern. In Figure Seated on Bed II, the substantial, lavish brushwork is overwhelmed with dimensionality and potency, and for Auerbach, impasto has always seemed as much a subject as the imagery itself. As the artist himself explained, ‘It is the paradox of trying to make a gesture on a flat surface about a haptic, a tangible experience’ (F. Auerbach interviewed by C. Lampert, 1978, printed in, Frank Auerbach, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2015, p. 151).
In Figure Seated on Bed II, the intensely concentrated colouration thrums with life, and Auerbach considers this negotiation with depth and physicality to be the essential question of painting. Accordingly, he has found inspiration from a whole array of painters including Rembrandt, Ingres, Monet, and de Kooning, each of whom, in his own way, has endeavoured to record the world’s matter and motion. ‘All my paintings,’ Auerbach notes ‘are the end result of hundreds of transmutations' (Auerbach, quoted in C. Lampert, N. Rosenthal and I. Carlisle, Frank Auerbach Paintings and Drawings 1954-2001, exh. cat., Royal Academy, London 2001, p. 26). The marks and motions in Figure Seated on Bed II are, as such, both known and incomprehensible, and, in hoping to pin down the world, Auerbach has rendered an impression, at once enigmatic, striking and convincing, a fleeting movement, an evolving self.