O, L I V I A

Letter Correspondance with Catherine Lampert (Sitter and friend of Auerbach):

Dear Olivia,

It’s true I am over-busy, not least with the last stages of the Auerbach catalogue.

When Auerbach studied after the old masters, would you agree that this relationship was significant because it helped him to learn what images already existed and at what point a painting becomes useful/exciting for an audience?

On your first question: For many years Auerbach looked at pictures in the National Gallery and elsewhere (like Picasso in Paris and London), some from books, drawing them, to get a feeling of how they were composed, how the protagonists acted, and as he put it, ‘what already existed’, but often it was a particular painting that related to what he was doing at the moment. I don’t think it had anything to do with what an audience might respond to.

When painting nudes, such as Figure on a Bed, 1959, would you say that any reaction that Auerbach made to Sickert’s painting - notably when exhibiting in the Beaux-Arts Gallery -was only a prompt for the direction of his own painting? position, colour lighting etc.

When Auerbach is engaged with a picture, everything counts, so for the nude on a bed, it is the person, his feelings, the light, the forms etc. Thus the knowledge of what Sickert and many other artists have done becomes secondary. He was particularly stimulated by what Sickert wrote. And, by the intimacy and normality of his Camden Town nudes.

Do you think that the alliance between Auerbach and Kossoff in their early years helped to cultivate their independent artistic approach to the same Western Tradition?

Yes, the close relationship (not an alliance) between Kossoff and Auerbach up until the mid 1960s, looking and admiring each other’s pictures, was important, but not so much about the Western tradition, as just painting, trying to get away from an illustrative approach in the late 1940s and to deal with tangible forms in space, rather than arbitrary forms.

Good luck with the last stages of your research.

Think different.

Discover • bauhaus-experience.com/journey-to-the-bauhaus

ART WEEK PARIS OCT 2015

(In order of appearance) FIAC; L’OFFICIELLE; SLICK; YIA

Each had its own level of galleries and with that a target audience. After having gone to as many as I could during paris art week, I was equally stunned by the politics of gallery representation as I was amazed by what was on show. 

FIAC: My first experience of an art fair was inside the the Grand Palais. Stunning though it was, as an international event in France it wasn’t doing much to nurture its own upcoming artists and galleries. Just displaying more of what we know already.

Q: Should an international art fair give priority to its domestic galleries? It seems that the percentage of French representation for the FIAC is in diminution, which even though it probably generates more money, it is harming France’s international presence for contemporary art. This pertinent point came up in a discussion with the gallerist for whom I work. 

L’OFFICIELLE: A more risk taking, practical art fair at Institut Français de la Mode, Gare Austerlitz. Even if the french representation of galleries and contemporary artists was only a margin better than FIAC, the presentation of the gallery booths were more intimate, allowing a personal connection with the artwork. It felt like a final year show, unknown artists’ work I felt rewarded for discovering. 

SLICK:  Like L’Officielle, the galleries were in no hurry to exhibit works of art they knew would sell. In fact it seemed a bit like a retaliating collection of galleries stating their worth, located so close to the FIAC at grand palais. 

YIA: For the smallest of the fairs I went to, French galleries were rife. Although not my favorite, it reassured me that emerging and mid-level French galleries had an opportunity to shine for the talented artists they promote.