British-German painter Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, has died aged 93, his representatives announced.
Auerbach, considered one of the greatest painters of his generation, died Monday at his home in London.
In a career that spanned seven decades, Auerbach’s works were exhibited in major galleries around the world.
British-German painter Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, has died aged 93, his representatives announced.
Auerbach, considered one of the greatest painters of his generation, died Monday at his home in London.
Born in Berlin in 1931, Auerbach arrived in England in 1939 as a refugee child. He was one of the six children sponsored by the writer Iris Origo.
Auerbach was raised at Bunce Court, which was then a Jewish-Quaker school in Kent. Now it is a private house. The Nazis sent his parents to an extermination camp.
Auerbach recalled that at Bunce Court there was “no oppressive presence of harmful adults.”
After studying at St. Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, he dedicated the remaining seven decades of his life to painting.
He lived and worked in the same north London studio from 1954 until his death and, according to his gallery, worked 364 days a year.
Along with other post-war ‘London School’ artists, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff, he focused on figurative painting regardless of changes in artistic fashions.
He often smeared canvases with thick layers of paint to produce almost abstract but recognizable landscapes.
Auerbach represented Great Britain at the 1986 Venice Biennale, winning the first prize of the Golden Lion.
In 1995 he held a rare solo exhibition at the National Gallery, where he recreated masterpieces by Rubens and Titian.
Auerbach’s work was purchased by major galleries in Britain, including the National Gallery, the Tate and the British Museum.
Galleries abroad, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery of Australia, also acquired his works.
The artist had little interest in money or expensive possessions and lived in Camden throughout his adult life.
‘If I moved I would just lose a lot of work, and life is very short and I am extremely slow. I don’t have time to move,’ he once said.
Looking towards Mornington Crescent Station, by Frank Auerbach. It sold for more than £1 million in 2010.
Self-portrait, by Frank Auerbach, 1958. It was exhibited in The Charcoal Heads exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery.
The artist continued to paint every day until his last days.
His most recent exhibition, Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads, opened at London’s Courtauld Gallery in February.
His work later fetched high prices. In 2023, ‘Mornington Crescent’, one of many inspired by the urban streets near his home, sold at Sotheby’s for $7.1 million, a record for the artist.
“We have lost a dear friend and a notable artist, but we take comfort in knowing that his voice will resonate for generations to come,” said Geoffrey Parton, director of Frankie Rossi Art Projects.
Auerbach married Julia Wolstenhome in 1958. They had one son, Jacob.
