Working Drawing for ‘Primrose Hill’ 1968

Editor: This is Frank Auerbach’s 'Working Drawing for ‘Primrose Hill’'. It looks like charcoal or graphite on paper. The marks are so energetic. What can you tell me about it? Curator: This is less about the final image and more about the *process* of creating 'Primrose Hill'. Auerbach’s working methods, the repetitive act of mark-making and erasure, are crucial. Do you see the evidence of reworking and the physicality of the materials? Editor: Yes, it’s clear he’s building something up and tearing it down, over and over. Curator: Exactly. The drawing is a record of labor. Think about the artist’s studio as a site of production, where materiality and the artist's actions are everything. Editor: So, it's less about the landscape itself and more about the act of representing it? I see it now. Curator: Precisely. It is more about the human engagement with the materials at hand to produce what we consider Art.