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Frank Helmut Auerbach (born 29 April 1931) is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the
School of London The School of London was a loose movement of 20th century painters, based principally in London, who were interested in figurative painting, in contrast to the abstraction, minimalism, and conceptualism which were dominant at the time. The London S ...
, with fellow artists
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
and
Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...
.


Life and career

Auerbach was born in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Borchardt, who had trained as an artist. Under the influence of the British writer
Iris Origo Dame Iris Margaret Origo, Marchesa Origo, DBE (née Cutting; 15 August 1902 – 28 June 1988) was an English-born biographer and writer. She lived in Italy and devoted much of her life to improving the Tuscan estate at La Foce, near Montepulc ...
, his parents sent him to Britain in 1939 under the
Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...
scheme (although he has stated it was by private arrangement), which brought almost 10,000 mainly Jewish children to Britain to escape from
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
persecution. Aged seven, Auerbach left Germany via
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
on 4 April 1939 and arrived at
Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
on 7 April. Robert Hughes
"The Art of Frank Auerbach"
''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'' vol. 31, issue 15, 11 October 1990. Retrieved 30 May 2013
His parents stayed behind in Germany, and were killed in the
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...
concentration camp in 1942. In Britain, Auerbach became a pupil at
Bunce Court School The Bunce Court School was an independent, private boarding school in the village of Otterden, in Kent, England. It was founded in 1933 by Anna Essinger, who had previously founded a boarding school, Landschulheim Herrlingen in the south of Ger ...
, near
Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient Briti ...
in Kent, where he excelled in not only art but also drama classes. Indeed, he almost became an actor, even taking a small role in
Peter Ustinov Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov ; 16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, filmmaker and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits ...
's play ''House of Regrets'' at the Unity Theatre in St Pancras, at the age of 17. But his interest in art proved a stronger draw and he began studying in London, first at
St Martin's School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an art college in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1854, initially under the aegis of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Saint Martin's became part of t ...
from 1948 to 1952, and at the
Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It ...
from 1952 to 1955. Yet, perhaps the clearest influence on his art training came from a series of additional art classes he took at London's
Borough Polytechnic London South Bank University (LSBU) is a public university in Elephant and Castle, London. It is based in the London Borough of Southwark, near the South Bank of the River Thames, from which it takes its name. Founded in 1892 as the Borough Po ...
, where he and fellow St Martin's student Leon Kossoff were taught by David Bomberg from 1947 until 1953.Catherine Lampert and Norman Rosenthal, ''Frank Auerbach: Paintings and Drawings 1954–2001'' (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2001), p. 20 From 1955, he began teaching in secondary schools, but quickly moved into the visiting tutor circuit at numerous art schools, including
Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, c ...
, Sidcup and the Slade School. In particular, he taught one day a week from 1958 to 1965 at
Camberwell School of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgrad ...
. He was the teacher, influence and sponsor of many artists, including Tom Philips,
Jenny Saville Jennifer Anne Saville (born 7 May 1970) is a contemporary British painter and an original member of the Young British Artists.Royal Academy of ArtsJenny Saville RA , Artist , Royal Academy of Arts accessdate: 29 August 2014 Saville works and ...
,
Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon (artist), Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artis ...
, Peter Saunders and Ray Atkins. For instance, he wrote to
Andrew Forge Andrew Murray Forge (10 November 1923, Hastingleigh, Kent – 4 September 2002, New Milford, Connecticut, United States) was an English painter, academic, and art critic. After Leighton Park School, Forge studied art at the Camberwell School of ...
, senior lecturer at the Slade to say that there were some remarkable students that he might consider, particularly Ray Atkins and Jo Keys, obtaining a place for them there. Auerbach's first solo exhibition was at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1956, followed by further solo shows at the Beaux Arts Gallery in 1959, 1961, 1962 and 1963, and then at Marlborough Fine Art in London at regular intervals after 1965; at Marlborough Gallery, New York, in 1969, 1982, 1994, 1998 and 2006; and at Marlborough Graphics in 1990. In 1978, he was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the
Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...
, London, and in 1986 he represented Britain in the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
, sharing the biennale's main prize, the Golden Lion, with
Sigmar Polke Sigmar Polke (13 February 1941 – 10 June 2010) was a German painter and photographer. Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s ...
. Further exhibitions have included ''Eight Figurative Painters'', held at the
Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
in New Haven, USA, in 1981, alongside Michael Andrews,
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
, William Coldstream,
Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...
, Patrick George, Leon Kossoff and Euan Uglow; and a retrospective at the Kunstverein, Hamburg, in 1986, comprising paintings and drawings made between 1977 and 1985 originally shown at the 42nd Venice Biennale, also in 1986. This show then toured, with some additional works, to the Museum Folkwang, Essen, and the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, in 1987. Exhibitions were also held at the
Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opene ...
, Amsterdam, in 1989; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, in 1991; and the
National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
, London, in 1995. He was included in the exhibition ''A New Spirit in Painting'' at the
Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
, London, in 1981 and a solo exhibition of his paintings and drawings 1954 to 2001 was held there in 2001; and held a solo show entitled ''Frank Auerbach Etchings and Drypoints 1954–2006'' at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which toured to the Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, during 2007–08; and another solo show at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in 2009. Auerbach was the subject of a television film entitled ''Frank Auerbach: To the Studio'' (2001), directed by Hannah Rothschild and produced by Jake Auerbach (Jake Auerbach Films Ltd). This was first broadcast on the arts programme '' Omnibus'' on 10 November 2001.
David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
bought and owned Auerbach's "Head of Gerda Boehm" as part of his
private collection A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individu ...
. After Bowie's death in 2016, this piece was among many put up for auction in November 2016, where it was sold for £3.8 million (US$4.7 million)."Bowie Art Auction Nets $41 Million: Sotheby's"
Luxuo, 13 November 2016. Retrieved 14 November 2016
London's
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, in association with the Kunstmuseum Bonn, organized a major retrospective of Auerbach's work in 2015 and 2016. The exhibit was curated by Catherine Lampert together with the artist.


Style and influences

Auerbach is a figurative painter, who focuses on portraits and city scenes in and around the area of London in which he lives, Camden Town. Although sometimes described as
expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it r ...
, Auerbach is not an
expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
painter. His work is not concerned with finding a visual equivalent to an emotional or spiritual state that characterised the expressionist movement, rather it deals with the attempt to resolve the experience of being in the world in paint. In this the experience of the world is seen as essentially chaotic with the role of the artist being to impose an order upon that chaos and record that order in the painting. This ambition with the paintings results in Auerbach developing intense relationships with particular subjects, particularly the people he paints, but also the location of his cityscape subjects. Speaking on this in 2001 he stated: "If you pass something every day and it has a little character, it begins to intrigue you."John O'Mahony, "Surfaces and depths", in ''The Guardian'' (London), 15 September 2001 This simple statement belies the intensity of the relationship that develops between Auerbach and his subjects, which results in an astonishing desire to produce an image the artist considers 'right'. This leads Auerbach to paint an image and then scrape it off the canvas at the end of each day, repeating this process time and again, not primarily to create a layering of images but because of a sense of dissatisfaction with the image leading him to try to paint it again. This also indicates that the thick paint in Auerbach's work, which led to some of Auerbach's paintings in the 1950s being considered difficult to hang, partly due to their weight and according to some newspaper reports in case the paint fell off, is not primarily the result of building up a lot of paint over time. It is in fact applied in a very short space of time, and may well be scraped off very soon after application. This technique has not always been considered positively, with the ''
Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...
'' newspaper commenting in 1956 that: "The technique is so fantastically obtrusive that it is some time before one penetrates to the intentions that should justify this grotesque method." This intensity of approach and handling has also not always sat well with the art world that developed in Britain from the late 1980s onwards, with one critic at that time,
Stuart Morgan Stuart Edward Morgan (born 23 September 1949 in Swansea) is a Welsh former professional footballer and football manager. A defender (association football), central defender, he made 222 appearances in the Football League playing for Torquay Uni ...
, denouncing Auerbach for espousing "conservatism as if it were a religion" on the basis that he applies paint without a sense of irony. As well as painting street scenes close to his London home, Auerbach tends to paint a small number of people repeatedly, including Estella Olive West (indicated in painting titles as EOW), Juliet Yardley Mills (or JYM) and Auerbach's wife Julia Auerbach (née Wolstenholme). He has been painting art historian and curator Catherine Lampert regularly since 1978 when she organized his retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. Again, a similar obsession with specific subjects, and a desire to return to them to "try again" is discernable in this use of the same models. A strong emphasis in Auerbach's work is its relationship to the history of art. Showing at the
National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
in London in 1994, he made direct reference to the gallery's collection of paintings by
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...
,
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
and
Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
. Unlike the National Gallery's Associate Artist Scheme, however, Auerbach's work after historic artists was not the result of a short residency at the National Gallery, it has a long history, and in this exhibition he showed paintings made after Titian's ''
Bacchus and Ariadne ''Bacchus and Ariadne'' (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in ...
'', from the 1970s, to Rubens' '' Samson and Delilah'', made in 1993.Tom Lubbock, "After you, master, after you", ''The Independent'' (London), 1 August 1995 Auerbach's personal history, and his painting style, are the basis for the character "Max Ferber" in
W. G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
's award-winning collection of narratives '' The Emigrants'' (1992 in Germany, 1996 in Britain).


Bibliography

*Frank Auerbach, T.J. Clark and Catherine Lampert, Tate Publishing (2015) *Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting, Catherine Lampert, Thames and Hudson (2015) *Frank Auerbach, William Feaver, Rizzoli International Publications (2009);(2022) *Frank Auerbach, Robert Hughes, Thames & Hudson Ltd (1990) *Frank Auerbach, British Council, The British Council Visual Arts Publications (1986) *Frank Auerbach – Early Work 1954–1978, Paul Moorhouse, Offer Waterman & Co (2012) *Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952–1962, Barnaby Wright (Author), Paul Moorhouse (Author), Margaret Garlake (Author), Paul Holberton Publishing (2010) *Frank Auerbach: Paintings and Drawings 1954–2001, Catherine Lampert (Author), Norman Rosenthal (Author), Royal Academy of Arts (8 October 2001) *Frank Auerbach, 'Fragments from a Conversation' ith_Patrick_Swift.html"_;"title="Patrick_Swift.html"_;"title="ith_Patrick_Swift">ith_Patrick_Swift">Patrick_Swift.html"_;"title="ith_Patrick_Swift">ith_Patrick_Swift_X_(magazine).html" ;"title="Patrick_Swift">ith_Patrick_Swift.html" ;"title="Patrick_Swift.html" ;"title="ith Patrick Swift">ith Patrick Swift">Patrick_Swift.html" ;"title="ith Patrick Swift">ith Patrick Swift X (magazine)">''X'' magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1 (November 1959); An Anthology from X, Oxford University Press (1988) *Frank Auerbach, Andrew Wykes, David Trees. Paintings (edited Gilmore). 2018. apx press *Frank Auerbach:The Sitters, Piano Nobile Publications (2022)


References


External links

*
10 artworks by Frank Auerbach
at th
Ben Uri
site *''Frank Auerbach: To The Studio'' documentary (2001
Jake Auerbach Films
*

* BBC Radio 3]
interview
with Frank Auerbach {{DEFAULTSORT:Auerbach, Frank 1931 births Living people Politicians from Berlin German emigrants to England Kindertransport refugees People educated at Bunce Court School Alumni of London South Bank University Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art Academics of Camberwell College of Arts Academics of Sidcup Art College Academics of Ravensbourne University London 20th-century British painters British male painters 21st-century British painters 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists 20th-century British male artists 21st-century German painters 21st-century German male artists 21st-century British male artists British contemporary artists Borough Group Jewish painters Frank Auerbach Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Neo-expressionist artists