Executed in 1996, J.Y.M. Seated II is immediately striking for its remarkable draughtsmanship and an impressive summation of Frank Auerbach’s powers of scrutiny. The initials found in the work’s title belong to Juliet Yardley Mills, a woman who participated in a four decade-long collaboration with Auerbach as the predominant subject in his portraits. Auerbach once fondly noted that J.Y.M. “was brought into the world to be a model, she came and sat and it was not quite like anything else… She took poses that were natural to her… It became like a central spine of what one was doing” (Frank Auerbach cited in: Catherine Lampert, Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting, London 2015, p. 184).
“[J.Y.M.] was brought into the world to be a model, she came and sat and it was not quite like anything else… She took poses that were natural to her… It became like a central spine of what one was doing”
The intensity of Auerbach’s response to his sitter and subject is gloriously brought to life through his bravura handling of oil, his masterful treatment of paint application and structural composition. In the present work, the paint has been meticulously layered to create a textured topography of pigment where impasto seemingly drips from the surface enlivening the bold silhouette that emerges from the composition. Amid swathes of dramatic brushwork and sculptural surface, the teasingly tangible intensity of Auerbach’s subject materialises. The familiarity and intimacy of their friendship is evident in the thick layering of paint, and despite the artist’s tendency towards abstraction, the figure of J.Y.M. is nonetheless made apparent through heavy grey brushstrokes amidst a plane of green, yellow, and plaster earth tones. Through this overt suggestion of the artist’s hand, the present composition offers a vigorous sense of velocity and motion, and while Auerbach confidently conveys an accurate image of his sitter’s psyche, his portraits are overwhelmingly physical, as much as they are mental.
Auerbach’s portraits indeed offer a reflective sense of truth through their gesture and expression, and remain unique amongst the work of his contemporaries in Britain and further afield. While the vibrant colours and gestural abstractions of the Abstract Expressionist movement, and particularly the work of Willem de Kooning, are a critical influence on Auerbach’s work, a closer reading of the artist’s repertoire illuminates his innate reverence to art history and critical figures of the past, including Delacroix’s distinct use of colour, Turner’s sense of abstraction and the portrait compositions of Rembrandt. These artists remain Auerbach’s most dynamic influences, as made evident by his weekly visits to the National Gallery: “I went every day, for a long time. I drew from paintings then drew them as if I’d drawn them myself… [their styles] have tremendous brilliance, tremendous energy” (Frank Auerbach cited in: Robert Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London 1990, p. 7). Fusing art historical influences with contemporaneous relevance, J.Y.M. Seated II epitomises Auerbach’s unparalleled ability to capture the characteristic essence of his subject and create works far beyond the realm of traditional portraiture painting.