Frank Auerbach

Private Collection (acquired from the artist)

Thence by descent to the present owner

London, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., Frank Auerbach, 1967, n.p., no. 13 (text) 

William Feaver, Frank Auerbach, New York 2009, p. 258, no. 189, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the white tones are slightly warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. This work is pinned to its original mount. Very close inspection reveals a few small drying cracks in the areas of thick impasto. Further close inspection reveals a small spot of loss to the centre of the top extreme edge. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals three minute specks that fluoresce darkly; one to a white impasto peak towards the lower right hand corner, one to the area of salmon coloured paint in the top right hand corner, and one to a possibly repaired short crack towards the centre of the top left quadrant.
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Expertly crafted from staccato-like peaks of luscious oil paint, Frank Auerbach’s E.O.W.’s Head on Her Pillow I is a superlative depiction of the artist’s most celebrated sitter, Estella (or Stella) Olive West. E.O.W. dominates Auerbach’s early artistic practice and featured in more than seventy paintings by the artist over their twenty-five year relationship. Executed in 1965, the present work is from a small group of three jewel-like paintings created in 1965-66, which illustrate E.O.W.’s spectral head lying peacefully on a fluffy white pillow, placed on a cool blue bed sheet. Painted from life late at night, the bright glare of a single electric light illuminates and vivifies this extraordinary painting: thick layers of white paint lavishly denote her skin whilst bold strokes of black paint expertly draw out the sitter’s raw emotions, while wisps of red and blue paint drizzle and snake across her undulating visage. An important small group of works for the artist, another painting from this series used to be held in the illustrious collection of Auerbach’s close friend and eminent British artist Lucian Freud, whilst other works featuring E.O.W. are held in prominent international collections such as the Tate, London, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. One of the leading British artists of our time, Auerbach’s work is currently the subject of a critically acclaimed, major retrospective at Tate Britain, London.

E.O.W., a 32 year old recently widowed mother of three young children, first met Auerbach in 1948 when they were both playing small roles in a production of Peter Ustinov’s The House of Regrets at the Unity Theatre. In need of some extra income after her husband’s death, Stella opened up her home in Earl’s Court to lodgers; the first of whom was Frank Auerbach. In spite of being 17 to her 32, within a week of moving in they embarked upon a long and tempestuous relationship that would span more than 25 years. Their relationship is perfectly documented by Auerbach’s paintings of this time with E.O.W. sitting for him three times a week for two hours at a time. As Robert Hughes observed: “If anyone, early on, helped him manage his sense of the world, it was Stella West. This would have a deep effect on his art. His need for stability within the threatening flux of experience would be absorbed, through E.O.W.’s constant presence as a subject, into the very marrow of his painting and projected on his habits of work” (Robert Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London 1990, p. 90).

Painted by Auerbach on his knees in the upstairs bedroom of Stella’s house, E.O.W.’s Head on her Pillow I exudes a captivating devotional quality. The artist recalled “I would have lots of paint around me, with the painting resting on a very, very painty chair… These conditions, which I think most artists would complain about, I never found irksome, working in a crowded small room, to be on my knees and not able to get too far away from the painting, because finally, I think, all that thing of unity is in one’s head as much as it is found by looking” (Frank Auerbach quoted in: Catherine Lampert, ‘Frank Auerbach in his own words’, The Telegraph, 4 November 2012, online). Brimming with the kind of raw emotion and expression that can only be achieved through life study, E.O.W.’s Head on her Pillow I is a forceful and extremely intimate depiction of a sitter that shaped and defined Auerbach’s practice.