Essential to Frank Auerbach’s practice is the importance of drawing, “I am totally dependent on drawings. I need them for it to feel true”. 'Head of Julia, profile' (1989), masterfully executed in charcoal and chalk, depicts the head of Julia Wolstenholme, the artist’s wife. It is characteristic of his psychologically charged portraits. The drawing relates to an etching from the same year, 'Julia', an impression of which belongs to Tate, London.

As a key member of the School of London, alongside Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, RB Kitaj, Michael Andrews and Francis Bacon, Auerbach initiated the re-birth of British figurative art during the 1960s and 70s. At a time when Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Conceptual Art were calling for the end of easel painting, Auerbach explored the human form and revitalised portraiture with the distinctive expressionist style, evident here.

Auerbach has used just three principal models throughout his career. One, his wife Julia, first posed for him in 1959. The couple had met and married in 1958 whilst they were both students at the Royal College of Art. Although Julia was the subject of early charcoal drawings by Auerbach, an affair with his model Stella West meant that it was not until 1976 that she again became a regular model. Although in his drawings and paintings of Julia, Auerbach returns to the same features he is perpetually seeing her in new ways.

In this mature work the areas of erasure and reworking in the charcoal indicate that Auerbach allowed the image to evolve from repeated revision over many hours; a technique which builds a traceable history into the drawing and indicates his desire to build the character of the sitter into the work. He employs similar methods in his paintings, including Portrait of Julia, 1992, which belongs to the National Gallery, Scotland. Discussing Auerbach’s powerful psychological depiction of people, the writer and historian William Feaver has noted: “Auerbach's heads are conceived not as busts or cameos but as presences”.