Old age is relative. When Rembrandt painted his Self-Portrait at the Age of 63, showing his pummelled, bankrupted, bereaved face, he looked ancient. He died that year. All his self-portraits as an “old man” were done in his 50s and early 60s. Frank Auerbach, by contrast, will be 92 this month. He is marking the moment with an extraordinary series of self-portraits that examine his face with such relentless honesty, he’s like a 21st-century Rembrandt.
Auerbach has said that he never used to find his own head visually interesting – but “now that I’ve got bags under my eyes, things are sagging and so on, there’s more material to work with”. In these 20 paintings and drawings – many finished in the early months of this year – he makes the most of that saggy material. Over a soft-shaded pencil drawing of his walnut-like phiz, jagged lines are added like time’s graffiti. In another, the flesh is almost invisible under a network of disembodied wrinkles. One painting suggests the shadowy features of a skull, yet from its depths a fire-red eye blazes.
