Expert Voices: Frank Auerbachs Mornington Crescent Seated II

Morning Crescent and Seated II are two seminal paintings by Frank Auerbach that represent the artists celebrated investigation into the genres of portraiture and the cityscape. Executed eighteen years apart, both works exemplify Auerbachs expressive use and colour and a faultless display of decisive and heavily impasto brushwork. Mornington Crescent is an incredibly rare and largescale example from Auerbachs 1960s output, and belongs to his ambitious and highly acclaimed body of landscapes. This work ranks among the largest paintings in Auerbachs catalogue raisonné and possesses a chromatic register that is unsurpassed. Seated II is an important portrait of one of Frank Auerbachs most celebrated sitters, Juliet Yardley Mills. Executed in 1987, this painting is an exceptional exposition of Auerbachs mature style and sits at the very height of his canon of portraiture. Amid swathes of dramatic brushwork, the sculptural surface of the canvas is reworked time and time agai