Glenn Brown

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner circa 1993

London, Anthony Reynolds Gallery, And What Do You Represent?, 1992
London, Serpentine Gallery, Glenn Brown, 2004, p. 30, illustrated in colour (incorrectly dated 1993)

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is very minor wear to all four extreme corner tips. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"To me, [Auerbach's] work epitomises existentialism through his depiction of the isolated, tortured figure. His brushmarks really grab the canvas. They have a sense of rhythm and timing that I find very compelling.... I adore his paintings, their strange sense of colour and their beguiling sense of fluidity."

The artist cited in: Rochelle Steiner, 'Interview with Glenn Brown' in Exhibition Catalogue, London, The Serpentine Gallery, Glenn Brown, 2004, p. 98

 

 

Taking his cue from the founders of Appropriation Art, Glenn Brown's quintessentially post-modern approach to painting borrows images from a diverse range of visual sources, both historic and current, and repaints them in manner entirely his own. Head, 1992, is one of his earliest works that takes as its source image one of Frank Auerbach's heavily impastoed portraits. In a masterpiece of trompe l'oeil painting, the thick ridges and dripping skeins of Auerbach's heavily textured surfaces are meticulously rendered in minute detail on a flawlessly flat, highly polished surface, making them look almost photographic. This is precisely Brown's point, who works from reproductions of fine art images to reflect how often we experience art at second-hand, through photographs. He accentuates this further by choosing reproductions that aren't always faithful to the original paintings in colour or tone, and then cropping or otherwise manipulating the images. In the present work, the head is turned on its side, so that initially at least it seams like a confluence of purely abstract brushstrokes.

 

Using fine fibre brushes and a technique that looks back to Jan van Eyck and the Old Masters, Brown patiently and reverentially transcribes Auerbach's vigorous drama-laden brushstrokes into a completely smooth, illusionistic rendering. Brown works on the painting systematically from left to right, never going back on painted passages, in marked contrast to the usual practice of working every area of the canvas up together. At the time, he had been looking closely at Cézanne, the progenitor of Modernism in painting, and he conceived of the rotated head as a landscape like the Mont Saint Victoire. Instead of envisioning the whole, his process is closer to rote, mechanical duplication, which tempers the expression of Auerbach's spontaneous creative process. In Head the clarity and scientific detail of the curling, twisting brushstrokes give sublime new voice to the delicacy of paint. Despite its resolute flatness, the surface has a feeling of intense fluidity which underlines the inherent artifice of painting and challenges the Modernist obsession with the impassioned painterly gesture through its cool, detached brand of painterly showmanship.