Standing in front of Frank Auerbach’s quietly harrowing charcoal portrait of Leon Kossoff and Kossoff’s own heavily textured, dour portrait of Auerbach, I felt as if I was caught between the gazes of the two artists. Caught in the balance of their stares, seeing the way each sees the other, I was both implicated and invisible.
Moments like these are the most intimate and affecting in Pallant House’s new exhibition of portraits of artists by artists. When a portrait of one artist by another is hung beside their portrait of the other, we find ourselves caught between them. There are many pairs of lovers featured, including Matthew Smith and his mistress Vera Cunningham or Lucian Freud and Celia Paul, as well as works by friends such as Auerbach and Kossoff or Nina Hamnett and Roger Fry. In some cases, such as the two paintings by Smith and Cunningham, it’s easy to see how the two artists influenced each other as they found a shared visual language of heavy, impressionistic brushstrokes and a dark, jewel-like palette. In others, the aesthetic distinctness is what draws you in.
