Frank Auerbach / Letter No. 1

Frank Auerbach in his London studio. At 92, he still works there 365 days a year. Credit, Suzie Howell for The New York Times

Dearest Frank,

Recently walking through the Denver Art Museum on a Friday after almost everyone had left for the day, an hour before closing, it was just me and the art guards around each bend of the walls surrounding the American exhibition from the Phillips Collection “All Stars”.

  I stood before a painting by John Henry Twachtman (1853 - 1902), (fig.1), “My Summer Studio”, that for a glimpse and brief moment it made me think of your moving, Morning Crescent Summer Morning 1991, (fig.2) and Joan Mitchell’s, Before, Again V, 1985, (fig.3) All three have that movement that I use and love and obsess over. An expressive dance that releases and creates emotions, but is strict and unique enough to gather the subject as an intended whole.

1. John Henry Twachtman (1853 - 1902) “My Summer Studio”, 1900   Photo © Leigh Viner

John Henry Twachtman (1853 - 1902) “My Summer Studio”, 1900 Detail  Photo © Leigh Viner

2. Frank Auerbach, Morning Crescent Summer Morning 1991

3. Joan Mitchell,  Before, Again V, 1985

I have a little obsessive nature to research, study and to try to understand more than just an artist works, but that of the artist themselves, their spaces. I will dive down rabbit hole after rabbit hole to satisfy finding commonalities, curiosities on how other artists work, live, how their worlds equate to my own as an artist, their qualities and habits.

My habits as an artist are not linear, or simple. It has more control over me than I of it. Each blank piece of paper, canvas, new film loaded into the camera is like the first time, every, single time. I try to control and schedule what is inspiring me from day to day, but each day shows a new light and guides me in a completely new unexpected direction. It’s magical, yet also frustrating as I have so many other ideas in addition that I want to begin.. An overflowing blessing of inspirations that can paralyze me all too often.

The most common I have found that each of us share, at all levels as artists, and mentioned in Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland is that, “we will return to our studio’s and practice our art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share.”

4. Frank Auerbach in his London studio, 2001, photographed by Kevin Davies
© Kevin Davies, courtesy National Portrait Gallery

5. © Christian Cassiel for the Financial Times

Your interviews are rare and even with discovering a few photos of your studio, you recently mentioned to Jackie Wullschläger from the Financial Times, “I don’t want to spoil the party, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t describe the studio,” a studio he has worked since 1954. “It’s quite private.”

So It feels a bit wrong then to look and study the photos that are available already through those few interviews. For example, the one from an article of one of your long time sitters. Catherine Lambert. (Fig.6) from the 1980’s. Maybe you felt different about sharing your studio then?

6. Frank’s studio interior, May 1985. © Prudence Cuming Associates (Image: Archant)

7. Newspapers and art books in Auerbach's studio. "In a sense, I'm conversing with them when I'm working," Auerbach said. Suzie Howell for The New York Times

8. “I start always in the hope of picking up my brushes, putting an amazing momentous image on the canvas and finishing the painting — and it's never happened yet," he said. Suzie Howell for The New York Times

They open so many doors of common practices that I can see and equate to myself.  The books on the floor open, a company that helps soften and compartmentalize my overwhelming nature of multiple ideas at once. One for colors, one for shapes, one for a reminder of what I’m trying to communicate. They are my teachers, reminding me that I too am capable of bringing my visions to life.  I reference with so many of you during my time in the studio studying and gathering all of my inspirations, finding common qualities that help me make sense of issues, frustrations and even any and all wins or failures. Its comforting to see that you do that in a similar way too. (fig. 7)

The papers, books, sketchbooks, newspapers that also fill my studio, and bookshelves around my home. I am curious to those inspirations, notes, sketches of yours against the wall and table. My stacks being a mix of artists, essays, letters, poets, history, interior design and photography. And in a similar fashion of reading multiple things at once as it looks next to your studio bed that you would sometimes use.

I picture the only heat coming from the portable heater that is plugged in, the only light at night from the small lamp where you’re reading until your mind and body start to guide you into a deep sleep that you fight against as you read. Each day in the studio is hard to leave behind. It’s the only activity that never tires, the activity that takes away your natural instincts to drink enough water, or take a break to eat, to breathe correctly.

This project, Artist to Artist letters, that I am creating for my newsletter, you’re the only one yet that I have written too that is gratefully still here, still creating passionately at 92, still inspiring so many of us. The other letters I’ve written, are to artists no longer with us, but they’re here in other ways, ways that still guide us as we need, we all just have to pause…. and listen.

Thank you for your creations, your art, your passions through each brush stroke.  As an artist, 20 years in, I am starting to find in common from many artists as I study, we’re always looking for that piece that gives and fills that hole, makes us whole. A drive I’ve had with me every single day that I know will never leave. A place that is a bit of magic and an in-between being lost and found.

Until next time, always,

Leigh -

9. ‘Self- Portrait’ by Frank Auerbach (1958)

10. ‘Head of Garda Boehm’ by Frank Auerbach (1961)

  Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads

9 Feb – 27 May 2024 

Presented for the first time at The Courtauld Gallery in Spring 2024

“Made in the 1950s and early 1960s. They will be shown together with a selection of paintings he made of the same sitters; for him, painting and drawing have always been deeply entwined. The exhibition will be a unique opportunity to see early masterpieces by one of the world’s most celebrated living artists.”

Supported by the Huo Family Foundation and The Garcia Family Foundation.