[The Guardian] Frank Auerbach’s early charcoal portraits look deep into human life – in pictures

Frank Auerbach’s early charcoal portraits look deep into human life – in pictures

For this series of large-scale charcoal portraits made between 1956 and 1962, the German-British painter Frank Auerbach drew his sitters over and over again, erasing the image after each session so that only a ghostly outline remained. He repeated the process until he felt he had captured the person’s essence; often the paper would rip. “What is so captivating about the drawings is how Auerbach could elicit such complex responses using just a piece of charcoal and a stick of chalk,” says curator Barnaby Wright, who has brought the portraits together for the first time for an exhibition. “We are so saturated by superficial images of people that these drawings offer us an enriching alternative, something deeply human and full of vitality.”

• Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads is at the Courtauld, London, 9 February-27 May

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