British and Irish Art Articles

By Lara Grieve

David Bomberg (1890-1957)
Ronda: In the Gorge of the Tajo
signed and dated 'Bomberg 35' (lower left)
oil on canvas
36 x 28 in. (91.5 x 71 cm.)
Sold for £926,400
London, June 2006



Frank Auerbach (b. 1931)
Head of J.Y.M., 1974
oil on board
17 x 17 in. (43.2 x 43.2 cm.)
Sold for £344,000
London, June 2006



Henry Moore, O.M., C.H. (1898-1986)
Reclining figure: Maquette for Memorial figure, Dartington Hall
bronze with a green patina 7 in. (18 cm. ) long
Conceived in 1945 and cast in an edition of 7
Sold for £209,600
London, June 2006



William Scott, R.A. (1913-1989)
Brown Still Life, 1956
oil on canvas
40 x 66 in. (101.6 x 167 cm.)
This work is recorded in the William Scott Archive as No. 72
Sold for £366,400
London, June 2006

Bomberg was mesmerised by Spanish towns and the surrounding countryside, which provided the inspiration for some of his most spectacular work. In summer 1934 Bomberg set off with his wife, Lilian, to Cuenca in Spain, then travelled south to Ronda. Perched high in the Andalucian mountains, Ronda is sliced in two by a gorge that drops 400 feet-joining the two halves is the 18th-century Puente Nuevo, 'New Bridge'.

Bomberg, who later described Ronda as 'the most interesting of the towns of Southern Spain', explored the countryside on a donkey, finding suitable vantage points from which to study and paint this remarkable town. Painted 40 years later, in 1974, Frank Auerbach's Head of J.Y.M. has similarly broad brushstrokes, which leave areas of thick impasto and peaks of paint that rise and trail across the surface. Auerbach, a pupil of Bomberg's at Borough Polytechnic, does not use traditional underpainting or outline sketches.

Instead he will paint, scrape down the surface and then return to repaint his subject the next day. The result is that some oil remains, retaining an impression of what was painted before and each time Auerbach returns he paints with a greater knowledge and intensity. Auerbach met Julia Yardley Mills (J.Y.M.), a professional model, at Sidcup College of Art in 1956 and she has been a key sitter for a number of his portrait works, visiting his Camden studio every Wednesday and Sunday until 1997.

In Head of J.Y.M., the sitter's head is tilted back and facing slightly to one side, resting against the back of a chair, a pose in which Auerbach frequently painted her during the 1970s and 1980s. It is partly the intense familiarity with which these artists know their subject-matter that imbues the works with such potency. William Scott, R.A. was similarly fascinated by still-life subject-matter: tabletops, saucepans, cups and saucers, some runner beans or eggs and bowls all appear frequently in his paintings.

Painted in 1956, Brown Still Life demonstrates Scott's dual embrace of figuration and abstraction. The frying pan, saucepans and bowls sit on a tabletop and at the same time the painting appears as a balanced composition of areas of colour in which Scott's textured paintwork reveal his working methods. Also included in the forthcoming 20th Century British Art sale will be another large-scale oil by Scott, Orange and Red, given by him to the late sculptor, Lynn Chadwick.

Just as Scott was drawn to still life, Auerbach to portraiture and Bomberg to landscape, Moore was constantly fascinated by the reclining female form. Reclining figure was one of two maquettes for Moore's Hornton stone Memorial figure which stands on the top terrace at Dartington Hall, Devon, as a memorial to Christopher Martin, the Dartington Hall Trust's first Art Administrator, who died in 1944. The sculpture was commissioned in 1945 by Dorothy Elmhurst, one of the two founders of Dartington Hall Trust.

First shown at the Leicester Galleries, London, Memorial figure was delivered to Dartington Hall in 1947. Moore choose the site himself, writing, 'I wanted the figure to have a quiet stillness and a sense of permanence'.

Lara Grieve is a specialist in the British & Irish Art Department, London.

Article appeared in the May/June 2006 issue of Christie's Magazine