Tickets on sale for Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads at The Courtauld

Tickets are now on sale for Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads at The Courtauld Gallery (9 Feb – 27 May 2024).

A remarkable series of hauntingly beautiful, large-scale drawings by Frank Auerbach (born 1931), will be presented together for the first time at The Courtauld Gallery in the Spring.

During his early years as a young artist in post-war London, Frank Auerbach produced one of his most remarkable bodies of work: a series of large-scale portrait heads made in charcoal. Auerbach spent months on each drawing, working and reworking them during numerous sessions with his sitters.

The marks of this prolonged and vigorous process of creation are evident in the finished drawings, which are richly textured and layered. Sometimes, he would even break through the paper and patch it up before carrying on. Auerbach’s heads emerge from the darkness of the charcoal as vital and alive, having come through a lengthy period of struggle – the image repeatedly created and destroyed. The character of the drawings speaks profoundly of their times as people were remaking their lives after the destructions and upending of war.

Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads will be the first time Auerbach’s extraordinary post-war drawings, made in the 1950s and early 1960s, have been brought together as a comprehensive group. They will be shown together with a selection of paintings he made of the same sitters; for him, painting and drawing have always been deeply entwined.

The exhibition will be a unique opportunity to see early masterpieces by one of the world’s most celebrated living artists.

Supported by the Huo Family Foundation and The Garcia Family Foundation.

Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads
9 Feb – 27 May 2024 
Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries

Tickets from £14. Includes entry to the permanent collection and displays.
Friends go free. Other concessions available.

The Courtauld Lates: Frank Auerbach
Fri 9 Feb 2024, 18:30 – 22:30

Enjoy an evening of world-class art, cocktails, music, and performances surrounded by The Courtauld’s collection of masterpieces. Join us to experience Frank Auerbach – The Charcoal Heads after hours, plus live DJ’s and more.

Tickets £5 – £14. Over 18s only. Includes entry to the permanent collection and displays.