How can painting capture place through time? For half a century Frank Auerbach has lived and worked in Camden Town, documenting this changing urban landscape and recording ‘the life that seemed… passionate and exciting and disappearing all the time.’
This conversation between painter George Shaw and Auerbach scholar William Feaver, chaired by National Gallery curator Colin Wiggins, focuses on Auerbach’s urban landscapes, discussing his process in relation to contemporary painterly and personal engagements with the concepts of place and time.
Biography
William Feaver
William Feaver is a painter, curator and art critic for many years, primarily at The Observer. He has been sitting for Frank Auerbach each Monday night for the last thirteen years. Feaver has curated exhibitions on Michael Andrews and Lucian Freud at Tate and, in collaboration with Freud, on John Constable at the Grand Palais, Paris in 2002. His books include John Martin, Pitmen Painters, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall, and monographs on Auerbach (new edition now available) and on Freud, whose biography he is currently writing.
George Shaw
George Shaw is an artist and currently Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist at the National Gallery. Shaw was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2011. He is known for his highly detailed approach and suburban subject matter. Solo exhibitions have included Looking for Baz. Shaz. Gaz and Daz, Void, Derry (2010); Woodsman, Wilkinson Gallery, London (2009); The End of the World, Galerie Hussenot, Paris (2008); A Day for a Small Poet, Clough Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, USA (2007) Poets Day, Centre d ‘Art Contemporain, Geneva (2006); Ash Wednesday, Wilkinson Gallery, London (2005), What I did this Summer, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2003).
Colin Wiggins
Colin Wiggins is Special Projects Curator at the National Gallery since 2011, before which he was Head of Education. He is responsible for the Associate Artist scheme and is currently working with George Shaw. He has curated several exhibitions at the National Gallery, including those of Paula Rego, Anthony Caro, Peter Blake, Bridget Riley and, most recently, Michael Landy. In 1995, he curated the exhibition Frank Auerbach and the National Gallery: Working After the Masters.