FRANK AUERBACH PAINTING OF HIS LOVER TO BE AUCTIONED FOR THE FIRST TIME AT BONHAMS
HIS LOVER ON BEING HIS SITTER: “I WONDERED WHAT I WAS DOING IT ALL FOR.”
An important painting by the British painter Frank Auerbach of his long-term lover, Estella Olive West, entitled Head of E.O.W. III, 1961, is to be sold at Bonhams, New Bond Street, as part of its 20th Century British Art sale on 30 June 2010.
The painting, which has never appeared at auction before, is expected to fetch £400,000 – 600,000.
Estella, a widowed amateur actress, was Auerbach’s lover for 23 years, and one of his most regular models, referred to as E.O.W. in the titles of his works. It was with Estella that he started the process of working and reworking paintings, which sometimes took hundreds of sittings to complete.
Estella once said of being a sitter: “It was quite an ordeal because he would spend hours on something and the next time he would scrap the whole lot down. That used to upset me terribly. I wondered what I was doing it all for.”
Auerbach was born in Berlin in 1931 and emigrated to England in 1939. He is best-known for his paintings depicting female models, including Estella, his wife Julia, and a professional model Juliet Yardley Mills, as well as his scenes of London, especially Camden Town.
A rare charcoal and chalk on paper by Auerbach also features in the sale. Entitled Portrait of Christopher Dark, 1977, it has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £40,000 – 60,000.
Bonhams
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further five throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Boston in the USA; Toronto, Canada; and France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist areas. By the end of 2009, Bonhams had become UK market leaders in ten key specialist collecting areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, go to www.bonhams.com
