Frank Auerbach

J.Y.M. Seated No. 1

1981

Not on display

Artist: Frank Auerbach born 1931
Medium: Oil paint on board
Dimensions: Support: 711 × 610 mm
frame: 880 × 780 × 70 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1981
Reference: T03319

Display caption

The subject of this painting is Juliet Yardley Mills (JYM), Auerbach's principal model since 1963. Auerbach has completed over seventy portraits

and studies of Mills. This, the first of three paintings of her executed in 1981, was completed in about twenty sittings. As in nearly all his studies of her, Mills is shown looking out of the picture and is seen slightly from below. In contrast to Auerbach's earlier paintings, in which the paint surface is built up to a thick accretion, this portrait demonstrates the freedom of drawing and fluid movement of paint which characterise his later style.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

T03319 J.Y.M. SEATED NO.1 1981

Not inscribed
Oil on panel, 28 1/4 × 24 (71.3 × 61)
Purchased from Marlborough Fine Art (Grant-in-Aid) 1981
Repr: Frank Auerbach: Recent Paintings and Drawings (exh. catalogue), Marlborough Gallery Inc., New York, April 1982, p.8

The sitter, J.Y.M., has been the subject of paintings by Auerbach for more than 25 years.

'J.Y.M. Seated No.1’ is the first of three paintings of this subject made in 1981. ‘No.2’ is in the collection of the Huddersfield Art Gallery and ‘No.3’ in a private collection in London. No drawings were made for the painting which was completed in about twenty-five sittings. The artist always worked in the presence of the sitter, and wrote to the compiler: ‘There is some difference in working from the object (rather than from drawings) but both processes demand invention.’

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1980-82: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1984