FRANK AUERBACH

Frank Auerbach was born in Berlin in 1931. His parents were Jewish, and in 1939 they sent him to England to avoid the advent of WWII. He went to St. Martin's School of Art where he met fellow artists David Bomberg and Leon Kossoff and developed longstanding friendships with them. Both Bomberg and Kossoff would contribute quite an impact on Auerbach in the years to come. After St. Martin's Auerbach studied at the Royal College of Art from 1952 to 1955. He had his first solo show in 1956, and continued to gain critical acclaim from then on.

Auerbach works in an impasto painting technique, in which paint is built up heavily on the canvas to render the image. Characterized by thick brush strokes, impasto is a very expressionistic and emotional style. In Auerbach's work, the paint is at times so thick and layered that the painting itself is comparable to a sculptural relief. Art critic David Sylvester, who praised Auerbach's work early on, comments that "in spite of the heaped-up paint, these are painterly images, not sculptural ones... their physical structure is virtually that of sculpture but their psychological impact is that of painting." Auerbach typically did many sketches and paintings before arriving at a finished product. In his drawings he would erase, rework, and draw over his subjects, using layers of paper that had a similar sculptural effect (seen in Head of EOW below).

Though it is difficult to do Auerbach's work justice on a flat computer screen, I've compiled the following images below to give a better sense of the impression these paintings leave upon their viewer. Close up, Auerbach’s paintings appear almost entirely abstract, with thick deposits of paint protruding from the surface. However, as one steps back, a rendered image appears, with a certain sense of accuracy and vitality unmatched in others’ work.

He has maintained the same three subjects in the majority of his work:

Julia, his wife

"Reclining Head of Julia," 1995

Juliet Yardley Mills, a professional model:

"J.Y.M. Seated No. 1," 1981

"Seven Portraits, JYM" 1989

and Estella West, a woman he developed a romantic relationship with when he was 17 (and she 32). This relationship was sustained even after his marriage.

"E.O.W. Nude" 1953

"Small Head of E.O.W.," 1957

"Head of E.O.W.," 1959

An interesting fact I found is that the reason Auerbach’s earlier work is mostly done in earth tones is not for aesthetic purposes, but instead due to his lack of funds. He broadened his palette once acquiring the financial resources. Below are examples of this shift in color application. It's amazing how well he achieves his goals in rendering despite the very limited color palette.

Before:

"Oxford Street Building Site," 1959

After:

"To the Studios," 1991

Auerbach is still living, working, and exhibiting in London. He had his first retrospective in the 1990s in England, and his work continues to appear in major traveling exhibits throughout the world, like "Paint Made Flesh," an exhibit that just passed through the Phillips Collection in DC.

RICHARD ARTSCHWAGER

Richard Artschwager was born in 1923 in Washington, DC to European immigrants. He was quite familiar with art at an early age, his mom a student at Corcoran School for the Art. Artschwager was drafted into WWII, but was wounded and discharged. He spent his early years as an artist in New York studying under Amedee Ozenfant. He began designing wood furniture, but after his workspace caught on fire he went back to fine arts.

In an interview by the Brooklyn Rail, Artschwager notes:

"Artschwager: ... I was interested in science and in art. Around the time our friendship got serious, a woman said to me: “You have to choose, focus on one. You can always change.” And so, I went to art because it’s unpredictable, and science, except in rare cases, is uncovering what’s already there. I couldn’t sleep that night—“What the hell have I done?” It’s like jumping off of a cliff. The door was open nevertheless… and then what to do with that… and it having to be original—how the heck can you be original?

Yau: So in ’47 you decided to be an artist and be original, but you made your first original pieces around 1962, right, when you did the sculptureHandle.

Artschwager: Yeah, in ’62. Formica, it came to my rescue, and non-European handy instincts, which is, what materials to use. “Handle” was made from stair railing, something that the individual naturally grips.

Yau: Things that people touch, like tables, chairs, and drawers..."

Artschwager is known for both his sculptures and paintings. In 1960 he began experimenting with illusional art, creating sculptures that resembled unremarkable objects yet played to an extent with optics. He first explored optical illusions with a series of pieces entitled "Table and Chair."

"Table and Chair," 1963-4

"Table and Two Chairs," 1965

MoMA notes his similarity to minimalism, and deems his gravitation towards this type of representation as a response to Pop Art.

Artschwager: ...What I am talking about is looking for originality. And above all one doesn’t want to be “school of.” For an artist that is the kiss of death.

Yau: You were associated Pop Art at the beginning.

Artschwager: The expression Pop Art is grossly misleading; there is nothing popular about it. Context is a useful thing to pay attention to. Cubism is another one that is misleading, that period has nothing to do with cubes. If you think of shingles you get a better idea.

Artschwager paintings also play with optics in a very different style than his sculptures. Mimicking antique photography, Artschwager used acrylics to portray modern culture.

"A Seated Group," 1962

"Untitled," 1970

"Sailors," 1972

"Interior," 1972

Here's an installation I really liked entitled, "Blips," in which Artschwager painted white circles around New York City on architecture that he found particularly compelling or beautiful. He did so in order to draw the attention of passersby that would have typically overlooked these fantastic structures. The one depicted below is on MoMA's P.S.01 building.

Artschwager has pretty much stayed in this same vein of exploring optical illusion. He is making work currently, some of which is shown below.

"Splatter Chair I," 1992

"Question Mark," 1994

"Live In Your Head," 2002

ART & LANGUAGE

Art & Language is a group of conceptual artists formed in the 1960s aimed to challenge artistic purpose and intent. The group uses language as a tool to alter the way the viewer perceives a work of art. The mere visual aspect of the art serves only partial to the complete experience; only with language can the viewer understand the piece. Art & Language is "determined by a sense of the need, critically and contingently, to address the culture of Modernism, and the agency which that culture is, and reflects, and misrepresents ... "

In other words, Art & Language served originally to prove (or disprove) the legitimacy of conceptual artists and their work. They encourage dissent and criticism of popular work, promoting that "Modern" art must first prove itself noteworthy and should not just be blindly accepted. Often labeled as "radical," this group really pushes concept to its furthest reaches.

I was not able to find a great database of information on this group, so much of the biographical content is sourced from the Tate. But to summarize, the group started off in 1968 as four British artists: Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, Harold Hurrell, and Michael Baldwin. Their focus was to shift art into theory and concept, so that art pieces (namely paintings and drawings) could no longer just stand alone as an image. The group quickly integrated new members, so that by the early 80s more than fifty artists were associated with Art & Language. As the Tate notes:

[Art & Language] identified three main phases of the group – the early years, up to 1972, which chiefly found public expression in the publication Art Language; a middle period divided between New York and England and linked to the publication of the journal The Fox (discontinued in 1976); [and] the period since 1977, during which paintings have been produced.

The group is now primarily known by two artists (Michael Baldwin, Mel Ramsden) and one critic (Charles Harrison). They are still producing work, and remain a controversial element of the contemporary art world.

"Portrait of V. I. Lenin with Cap in the Style of Jackson Pollock"

"Picasso's Guernica in the Style of Jackson Pollock"

The Artbook brings to light one of a series of pieces by Art & Language "in the style of Jackson Pollock." After reading reviews and criticsm of and by the group, it is my understanding that the intent of this piece is to call forth the coming trend of "expressiveness." In their words: "by replicating the style of Pollock, the artists were calling attention to the issue of ‘expression and expressiveness.' Harrison has suggested that Pollock's work of 1947-50 had ‘exhausted the potential for an expressive, unselfconscious art, ... Expression somehow became culture, became cultured and emasculated. That emasculation was a part of what Art & Language was trying to represent as a determining condition. The fixing of an expressive content needed to be taken away from the ‘authoritative aesthetic spokesman, ... what a painting expresses or means must be a function of what it is made of and from, culturally, socially, technically, historically, psychologically and morally, independently of the mind of the spectator ...' " 

I do not believe they are necessarily debasing Pollock's work, but instead challenge the progression of ideas immediately following in which uninhibited expression was filtered into an accepted practice of modern art. That is to say that this type of expression in painting was normalized to the extent that it lost it's original intention, and that the mutation of expression into a style, "expressiveness," caused the importance of Pollock's work to dwindle rapidly. In this piece, Art & Language brings back the idea of purpose and meaning behind abstraction. Also, they are in a way dethroning Pollock from his authoritative role as creator, and returning the piece to the hands of a greater, superior force. Not the viewer, as Harrison notes, but instead, time. To be simultaneously of its time and ahead of its time, that is the true mission of a great piece of art.

Below exhibits the diversity of work of the artists involved in Art & Language. 

"Homes from Homes II"

The following piece was a part of a collaboration done with the band Red Crayola.

"Hard to Say When"

"A Rose Has No Teeth," a play on a Wittgenstein passage

Conceptually, Art & Language can be quite difficult to grasp. Also working on limited resources (internet searches as well as library searches did not provide for much), I feel that I've fallen short somewhat of the true conquest of Art & Language. In the future as I uncover more resources, I hope to flesh out this entry a bit more and provide a clear view of what the group is trying to do, as well as more images. If you're interested in a more detailed biography, check out the Tate full text review on Art & Language. You might run into the same issues in that entry as in this- lack of clarification. I think it is safe to say that with the extent of conceptualization drafted by these artists, few reviews are black and white. The Frieze Magazine also had a pretty good article on Art & Language, though after reading it I still retained a certain level of incoherence of the altogether message and point. 

It is my hope that as I continue as an artist and art historian that I will too discover and understand the pioneering of Art & Language, for art is an ongoing dialogue between self and surrounding, surrounding and self, and in order to truly produce relevant, groundbreaking art, one must constantly be concerned with this process of reflection and re-reflection. 

"The original commitment of Art & Language to the view that visual art is conceptually dependent on language had entailed the pursuit of a long critical and analytical project." To be continued...

AVIGDOR ARIKHA

Avigdor Arikha, born 1929 in Romania, is a Jewish artist currently living in Paris. In the 40s, Arikha was deported to a concentration camp with his parents, where his father died. Arikha survived due to his artistic skill, and was eventually relocated to Israel. He stayed there for a while, attending school at the Bezalel School of Art. He moved to Paris in 1949 upon reception of a scholarship to the Ecole de Beaux Arts, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Not only is his background unusual, but his artistic career follows an interesting path as well. He is the first artist I have seen to embrace abstract art and later reject it. After WWII, Arikha began schooling under Bauhaus influence. However, after a short time period, he decided abstraction insufficient for his purposes, and spent eight years producing prints and drawings. According to the artbook, this was largely inspired by a Caravaggio show he saw in 1965. In 1973, he picked up painting again and continued throughout his life time. He has been commissioned to do a number of portraits, including the Queen Mother. 

Interestingly enough, the artbook chose to depict a painting entitled "Sam's Spoon." Shown above, this painting is a tribute to Arikha's friend Samuel Beckett, and the painting was done on the one year anniversary of his death. Beckett's spirit and memory seems to be captured in this individually presented spoon, laid carefully on a creased napkin. Completed in 1990, this piece is currently held in private collection.

I chose to include pieces from relatively every era of Arikha's life. It is really fascinating to watch the way his style and focus shift, especially related to the recession from abstract to representational art. 

"Haute Rouge I," 1961- still in his abstraction period

"Self-portrait with Open Mouth," 1973

"The Square in June," 1983

"Ludovic Kennedy and Moira Shearer," 1993 

"Head and Shoulders," 1999

CRAIGIE AITCHISON

Craigie Aitchison was born in 1926 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He original planned to follow his father's footsteps in a law career, attending school at Edinburgh University. However, in 1952 he switched into art and completed school at the Slade School of Art. Aitchison became part of a group of artists, known as The School of London, who focused their work primarily on figurative painting, maintaining elements of modern technique but distancing from "the radical tendencies of contemporary art," as the Artbook puts it. Aitchison's painted incredibly simplified figures, and devoted a large portion of his subject matter to the Crucifixion of Christ. 

"Portrait of Naaotwa Swayne," chosen by the Artbook, is a 20" x 24" portrait of a young woman completed in 1988. Aitchison chose to use mostly African and West Indian sitters because he preferred the warm flesh tones, which he has painted very well in this piece. The simplified figure seems to glow against the green/black background, and though incorporating ideas of abstraction, Aitchison still retains figurative aspects and a strong sense of personality in the piece. The most fascinating part of this piece for me is the style applied to the oil paint- it appears almost chalky, like pastel or conte. Certainly he must have only applied thin coats of paint, as the luminosity from the canvas shines through in the skin tone. 

My next choice is one of his Crucifixions. "Crucifixion 9," (1987, above) is a truly original depiction of the archetype and can be seen at the Tate Museum. Aitchison chose to shift the focus from subject to style; instead of drawing meaning from the action of the painting, the viewer looks to shape and color to set the mood. Also- in simplification of his subject, Aitchison chose not to include Christ's arms, for which his reasoning was "everybody knows who he is. He doesn't need arms." This goes further to show the arbitrariness of the actual figure of Christ; usually the most important aspect of a biblical painting, Aitchison's Christ doesn't even need arms in his painting to achieve its purpose. Also, the dog is a really interesting choice in this. No followers of Christ are displayed, neither are his crucifiers, yet there is a dog, possibly symbolizing compassion and loyalty. He used this somewhat iconic image of the dog in a lot of his other pieces, as well.

"Model Standing on a Blue Wall," shown above, is an earlier painting of Aitchison's (1962) that also hangs at the Tate. I really liked this painting's composition- very simple, yet very effective in drawing the viewer in and giving a true to form impression of the subject. The flatness and depth of this painting gives evidence of his modern artistic training, and the overall depiction and composition are reminiscent of some of Picasso's portraits. I really love the large, simplistic blocks of color in the background, and the delicate treatment of the subject itself. Beautiful painting. 

Aitchison now spends most of his time living in a London estate that he's owned for over 35 years. His works hang at the Tate, though he has had some retrospective traveling exhibits recently. Some of his newer pieces are shown below.

Nandi Bull in front of Temple I, 2000

Crucifixion with Mountain, Montecastelli, 2002

EILEEN AGAR

(this is a fantastic photograph I found of her)

Eileen Agar, born in 1899 in Buenos-Aires, is one of the few women associated with the Surrealist movement. She spent most of her time in London, though she did live in Paris for a short while. She married in 1927, but soon developed an affair with writer Joseph Bard, whom she eventually married in 1940. Bard was highly influential to her and is very apparent in her work. He was quite often the subject of her pieces and posed for her on numerous occasions. Agar's work mostly consists of painting, but ranges from sculpture, collage, and other mixed media as well. She continued making work until her death in 1991. 

The above piece is the one highlighted in the Artbook. Entitled, "The Angel of Mercy," Agar created this in 1934 using collage and watercolor on plaster. "The Angel of Mercy" seems to epitomize her efforts in Surrealism; though clearly sculpted to portray the head of a man (Bard, to be exact), this sculpture further references mythology in its oddly painted swirls of color, stars on the chin and upper lip, and Classics-style hair. This work is also hinting at the surge of the Abstract movement that was soon to come in this time period.

I also choose to include below some of her paintings and collages. I found her use of mixed media particularly interesting, since it seems a bit out of the norm for the time period. One painting I'd like to mention is "The Lovers" (1933, above). With stylistic similarities to Matisse and Cezanne, "The Lovers" is a beautiful example of Fauvist color and technical theory. Moreso, I was really drawn to its thematic elements. The title alludes to two people, lovers, and was painted around the time of her affair with Bard. However, in the piece, only the woman is portrayed, with an oblong shape close to her head, giving the impression of another, mysterious figure. Where even the details of the woman's dress are shown, Agar doesn't give facial features to the other figure. The dark shadow of the other lover's body is almost an element of the background, yielding elusiveness akin to a secret affair. I think this is a beautiful representation of the relationship she was having with Bard at the time. 

"Tropical Study"

"Demeter," 1949

"Untitled"