Untitled

Untitled

Frank Auerbach

2003

graphite

From the collection of Museum of Modern Art

About this work

This sketch shows a messy, quick drawing of a face and shoulders. The lines are rough and overlapping, like someone scribbled fast without smoothing anything out. There’s no clear background—just the shape of a head, a collar, and a hand resting on the shoulder. The pencil strokes are thick in some spots and barely there in others, giving it a scratchy, uneven look. It feels like the artist was working fast, capturing the basic shapes before details. Try looking up cross-hatching to see how artists build texture with lines.

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