‘The Charcoal Heads’ opened a few weeks ago at the Courtauld gallery in London. The exhibition is a small presentation of a series of large-scale drawings in charcoal by Frank Auerbach made during his early years as an artist in post-war London.

It’s absolutely worth visiting these works to experience them in the flesh, so to speak, in order to really see the intense level of enquiry and determination to get the image that he was happy with onto the paper. They’re full of corrections, gouges, tears and rubbings that reveal the scars and patches of their making. They are a moving encounter with the models who were so close to him and would continually sit for him during the period.

It’s tempting for me to try to read significance into these images based on what I know about Auerbach and the historical context that they were made in, just after the war in blitzed out London. They’re dark and heavy. They are intense studies. There’s no eye contact with the viewer in any drawing except for the self-portrait image used on the poster. The heads emerge out of the blackness and exist in their space, lost in thought. Or maybe not lost at all? I guess we’ll never know or maybe we don’t even need to know. Powerful stuff. Just great.

“Although we may be stimulated by works of art we make our pictures from living sensations. The aim of painting is this: To capture a raw experience for art.” Auerbach

A show spread over two rooms of 17 drawings and 6 paintings. Until 27 May.