ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Latest editorial
Out of the ashes
JAN WOOLF ponders the images of humanity that emerge from the tormented, destructive process of the Kindertransport survivor Frank Auerbach
Head of Helen Gillespie II, 1962; Head of EOW, 1960; Self-Portrait, 1959
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Frank Auerbach, The Charcoal Heads
Courtauld Gallery
“I FEEL there is no grander entity than the individual human being... I would like my work to stand for individual experience.”
This statement of Auerbach’s features prominently in his exhibition Charcoal Heads; drawings from the 1950s and ’60s being shown in this combination for the first time. Monumental but deeply human, it is this contradiction that makes them extraordinary.
Down and dirty with charcoal, stuff from burnt trees, trees that could have been from the forests of northern Europe where so much awful stuff happened, he gropes for the essence of a person. Frank Auerbach was sent to England aged seven by his German Jewish parents to save him from the Nazis. This is context!
More from this author
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
JAN WOOLF relishes a book of poetry that deploys the energy of political struggle, rooted in post-war working class history and culture
JAN WOOLF marvels at a rich brew of steam-punk Victoriana, homosexual scandal, and contemporary reference
JAN WOOLF savours the essays of Hilary Mantel: high calorific brain food that slips down nicely
