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Lot Essay
Painted in 1965, E.O.W. Head on Her Pillow is a close and intimate portrait of Stella West, Auerbach's first and most important model. As is indicated by the scale and the view of the woman's head, E.O.W. was Auerbach's lover and it is the emotional intensity, as well as the intense physicality of his subject, that is transferred onto canvas through this painting's intense build-up of oils. E.O.W. Head on Her Pillow has the signature lushness and thickness of paint of Auerbach's paintings from this period. It is almost a bas-relief, and the deep pockets and thick mounds of paint create an ever-changing landscape that alters depending on angles of view and plays of light and shadow. In the swirling matter that covers the canvas, with waves and eddies that appear filled with life and that record the meticulous and slow process of creation, the head of E.O.W. appears as though emerging from the primordial ooze. The sheer magnetism of E.O.W.'s presence within Auerbach's life combines with her physical magnetism to drive him to create an image that is filled with an organic sense of life. This is an oil painting that appears hewn out of pure experience and emotion.
It is the familiarity of E.O.W., and the intensity of the relationship that they shared (by this time, they had been together for almost two decades) that makes Auerbach's paintings of her so potent. She was the ideal subject for his explorations of painting's potential to capture life in a dramatic new way: 'I'm hoping to make a new thing that remains in the mind like a new species of living thing... The only way I know how... to try and do it, is to start with something I know specifically, so that I have something to cling to beyond aesthetic feelings and my knowledge of other paintings. Ideally one should have more material than one can possibly cope with' (Auerbach, quoted in R. Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London, 1990, p. 12). Stella, more than anyone else, provided such an excess of material, making E.O.W. Head on Her Pillow an intriguing record of life, as well as an intriguing insight into the extremely private world of the painter himself.
It is the familiarity of E.O.W., and the intensity of the relationship that they shared (by this time, they had been together for almost two decades) that makes Auerbach's paintings of her so potent. She was the ideal subject for his explorations of painting's potential to capture life in a dramatic new way: 'I'm hoping to make a new thing that remains in the mind like a new species of living thing... The only way I know how... to try and do it, is to start with something I know specifically, so that I have something to cling to beyond aesthetic feelings and my knowledge of other paintings. Ideally one should have more material than one can possibly cope with' (Auerbach, quoted in R. Hughes, Frank Auerbach, London, 1990, p. 12). Stella, more than anyone else, provided such an excess of material, making E.O.W. Head on Her Pillow an intriguing record of life, as well as an intriguing insight into the extremely private world of the painter himself.