Juliet Yardley Mills, the sitter in this arresting 1991 oil on canvas by Frank Auerbach, is known as ‘J.Y.M.’ in the artist’s paintings. Auerbach first met her in the late 1950s whilst she was working as a professional model at Sidcup School of Art, although her name does not appear in his work until 1963. Over the following four decades Juliet would sit for Auerbach every Wednesday and Sunday at his Camden studio, until 1997. This represents one of the most committed and lengthy relationships between artist and model in the history of twentieth century art. In Auerbach’s canon, only ‘E.O.W.’ (Estella West) and his wife, Julia, are represented with any kind of similar regularity.

Each year Auerbach would embark on a small and intimate series of oil paintings which tackled his favoured models. Within the titles they would usually be assigned a number (as a Roman numeral) denoting their sequential order. Such was the obsessive in depth analysis of these individual paintings that each series rarely exceeded five (V). Their compositions would usually remain faithful to the first in the series, with seemingly minor adjustments. In the 1991 group of four paintings depicting J.Y.M. seated, Juliet is depicted not quite full length in her chair, and positioned to varying degrees right of centre.

It is with Auerbach’s choice of colour and handling of paint where we see greater variety and experimentation, making each painting a unique and powerful testament to his connection and understanding of Juliet’s character. In J.Y.M. Seated II (1991) there is less dark and heavy outlining of forms making it an altogether gentler image. It contains less black and utilises more yellow and green than the others, in both the body and background, which serves to flatten the picture plane.

Auerbach once fondly noted that J.Y.M., “was brought into the world to be a model, she came and sat and it was not quite like anything else… She took poses that were natural to her… It became like a central spine of what one was doing” (Frank Auerbach cited in: Catherine Lampert, Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting, London 2015, p. 184).

The Artist
Marlborough Gallery, Madrid
Private Collection, U.K.
Private Collection, U.K. (since 2017)

W. Feaver, Frank Auerbach, Rizzoli, New York, 2009, p. 314, no. 664 (ill. col.)

Madrid, Marlborough Gallery, Frank Auerbach: Paintings and Drawings, 1993