Dimensions: support: 1282 x 1277 mm frame: 1376 x 1376 x 84 mm
Copyright: © Frank Auerbach | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: We're looking at Frank Auerbach's "The Sitting Room" from the Tate collection. It's awash with thick impasto. I'm struck by how the texture seems to almost dissolve the forms. What is your take on it? Curator: Notice how Auerbach uses a limited palette to construct spatial relationships. The application of paint is so vigorous, yet the composition holds. Does the density of the pigment suggest a particular emotional register to you? Editor: I see how the density could suggest a stifled, perhaps claustrophobic feeling. The red hues amplify that. Curator: Precisely. Auerbach’s manipulation of the medium transforms the mundane into something intensely felt. The materiality itself becomes the subject. Editor: I hadn't considered the materiality so directly. Thank you. Curator: A closer look reveals how form arises from pure chromatic and textural exploration. Fascinating.
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Auerbach spent many evenings with his friend and frequent model, Stella West in this sitting room. The earthy colours generate a sense of warmth and intimacy. Stella appears in profile on the left, leaning forward. Across the room, her daughter is seated in a chair beside a standard lamp. As one critic has commented, 'The forms are experienced rather than exhaustively explained. There is a depth and atmosphere. The room, as DHLawrence would say, has a soul'. Gallery label, October 2000
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