Frank Auerbach

{{Infobox artist

| name = Frank Auerbach

| image =

| image_size = 220

| caption = Auerbach {{circa|2010}}

| birth_name = Frank Helmut Auerbach

| birth_date = {{birth date|1931|04|29|df=y}}

| birth_place = Berlin, Germany

| death_date = {{death date and age|2024|11|11|1931|4|29|df=y}}

| death_place = London, England

| citizenship = {{ubl|Germany (until 1935)|Stateless (1935–1947)|British subject (from 1947)}}

| education = {{ubl|St Martin's School of Art|Royal College of Art|Borough Polytechnic}}

| known_for = Painting

| movement = School of London

| spouse = {{marriage|Julia Wolstenholme|1958|January 2024|end=her death}}

| partner =

| children = Jake

}}

Frank Helmut Auerbach (29 April 1931 – 11 November 2024) was a German-born British painter. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, he became a naturalised British subject in 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, both of whom were early supporters of his work.Richard Morphet, The hard-won image (London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1984), p. 54Cole, Joshua. "[https://thamesandhudson.com/news/from-the-archive-examining-the-importance-of-frank-auerbach/ From the Archive: Examining the Importance of Frank Auerbach, 1931–2024]". Thames and Hudson, 3 October 2019. Retrieved 16 November 2024

Early life and education

Auerbach was born on 29 April 1931 in Berlin, Germany,{{cite web |title=Frank Auerbach |website=Munzinger Biographie |url=https://www.munzinger.de/register/portrait/biographien/Frank%20Auerbach/00/19830 |language=de |access-date=15 November 2024}}{{cite web |last=Ruthe |first=Ingeborg |date=12 November 2024 |title=Frank Auerbach ist tot: Der Maler, der als Berliner Junge den Nazis entkam |url=https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/kunst/frank-auerbach-der-maler-der-als-berliner-junge-den-nazis-entkam-ist-tot-li.2271495 |website=Berliner Zeitung |language=de}} the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Borchardt, who had trained as an artist.{{cite web |last=Jones |first=Jonathan |date=12 November 2024 |title='He painted with a fury for life' – how Frank Auerbach put lust and sorrow into every brushstroke |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/nov/12/frank-auerbach-painter-fury-holocaust |newspaper=The Guardian}} With rising Nazi persecution of Jews such as themselves, his parents sent him to Britain in 1939,[https://web.archive.org/web/20130926200940/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/auerbach_transcript.shtml Transcript of the John Tusa Interview with Frank Auerbach], BBC Radio 3, archived from [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/auerbach_transcript.shtml the original] on 26 September 2013 one of six such children sponsored by British writer Iris Origo.{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=John |date=4 October 2013 |title=BBC Radio Four − Front Row: 4.10.13 John Wilson & Frank Auerbach. |url=https://www.ordovasart.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/rembrandt-frontrow-transcription_sp.pdf}} His parents stayed behind in Germany, and were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.Eric L. Santner, On creaturely life: Rilke, Benjamin, Sebald (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 100, note 2{{Cite news|last=Jones|first=Jonathan|date=29 August 2014|title=Frank Auerbach: a painter's painter of horrors and joy|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/29/frank-auerbach-painters-painter-freud-tate-retrospective|access-date=18 November 2024|work=The Guardian|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}

In Britain, Auerbach became a pupil at Bunce Court School, near Faversham 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'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 from 1948 to 1952, and at the Royal College of Art 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, 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

Career

In 1955, he began teaching in secondary schools, but he quickly moved into the visiting tutor circuit at numerous art schools, including Bromley, Sidcup and the Slade School. In particular, he taught one day a week from 1958 to 1965 at Camberwell School of Art.Sarah MacDougall, "'Seen by the eye and felt by the heart': The Émigrés as Art Teachers", in: Monica Bohm-Duchen ed., Insiders Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and Their Contribution to British Visual Culture (London: Lund Humphries, 2019), cited in [https://www.buru.org.uk/record.php?id=45 "Frank Auerbach, artist"], Ben Uri Research Unit database, Ben Uri Gallery & Museum. Retrieved 28 November 2021.Geoff Hassell, Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts: Its Students and Teachers 1943–1960 (Woodbridge: The Antique Collectors' Club, 1998), p. 31 He was the teacher, influence and sponsor of many artists, including Tom Philips, Jenny Saville, Cecily Brown,{{cite web |title=Frank Auerbach Paintings, Bio, Ideas |url=https://www.theartstory.org/artist/auerbach-frank/#:~:text=Part%20of%20the%20influential%20School,Adrian%20Ghenie%2C%20and%20Antony%20Micallef. |access-date=5 August 2022 |website=The Art Story}} Peter Saunders and Ray Atkins. For instance, he wrote to Andrew Forge, 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.{{cite book |title=Ray Atkins : a long view : from Bromley, Reading, Cornwall to the Pyrenees. |date=2011 |publisher=Art Space Gallery |isbn=978-0-9563072-6-2 |location=London}}

Auerbach's first solo exhibition was at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1956, followed by further solo shows there between 1959 and 1963. His work was featured at Marlborough Fine Art in London at regular intervals after 1965 as well as at the Marlborough Gallery in New York in 1969, 1982, 1994, 1998 and 2006.Barnaby Wright et al., Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952–1962 (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2010), p. 80 In 1978, he was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery and was included in the exhibition A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1981. In 1986, he represented Britain in the Venice Biennale, sharing the Golden Lion with Sigmar Polke. Further exhibitions were featured at: the Yale Center for British Art in 1981, alongside Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, William Coldstream, Lucian Freud, Patrick George, Leon Kossoff and Euan Uglow; the Kunstverein in 1986; the Van Gogh Museum in 1989; Marlborough Graphics in 1990; the Yale Center for British Art in 1991; the National Gallery in 1995;Colin Wiggins, Frank Auerbach and the National Gallery (London: National Gallery Publications, 1995) the Royal Academy of Arts in 2001.

From 2007 to 2008, Auerbach held a solo show entitled Frank Auerbach Etchings and Drypoints 1954–2006 at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which toured to the Abbot Hall Art Gallery. In 2009, he had another solo show at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Auerbach was the subject of a television film entitled Frank Auerbach: To the Studio, 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.{{cite web |date=10 November 2001 |title=BBC Programme Index |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b937abdd266e4abf82936f8acc4b01d1 |access-date=14 November 2024 |publisher=BBC Programme Index}}

London's Tate Britain, in association with the Kunstmuseum Bonn, organised a major retrospective of Auerbach's work in 2015 and 2016. The exhibit was curated by Catherine Lampert together with the artist.T.J. Clark and Catherine Lampert, "Frank Auerbach" (London: Tate Publishing, 2015). David Bowie owned Auerbach's Head of Gerda Boehm as part of his private collection. 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).[http://www.luxuo.com/auctions/bowie-art-auction-nets-41-million-sothebys.html#yf0TkFwGmRw7GXmW.97 "Bowie Art Auction Nets $41 Million: Sotheby's"], Luxuo, 13 November 2016. In 2024, the exhibition Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads at The Courtauld Gallery showcased a series of large-scale charcoal drawings by Auerbach, created in post-war London during the 1950s and early 1960s.{{cite news |title=Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads |url=https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-frank-auerbach-the-charcoal-heads/ |work=The Courtauld}}

Style and influences

File:Auerbach, Head of E.O.W. IV.jpg]]

Auerbach was a figurative painter, who focused on portraits and city scenes in and around the area of London in which he lived, Camden Town."Art View" in The Economist, 3 February 2007 Although sometimes described as expressionistic,Ben Lewis, "Exuberant unpredictability", in The Daily Telegraph (London), 30 April 2006. Also see John Gruen, "Too Many Spooks", in New York, 13 October 1969, p. 54 Auerbach was not an expressionist 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.Richard Dorment, "Heads above the rest", in The Daily Telegraph (London), 19 September 2001. This ambition with the paintings resulted in Auerbach developing intense relationships with particular subjects, particularly the people he paints, but also the location of his cityscape subjects.{{cite web |last=Sawa |first=Dale Berning |date=25 April 2023 |title='I'm doing what may be my last paintings': Frank Auerbach on his new self-portraits and turning 92 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/25/frank-auerbach-artist-self-portraits-last-paintings |access-date=14 November 2024 |website=The Guardian}}

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 developed between Auerbach and his subjects, which resulted in an astonishing desire to produce an image the artist considered 'right'. This led 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.Ben Lewis, "Exuberant unpredictability", in The Daily Telegraph (London), 30 April 2006

This also indicates that the thick paint in Auerbach's work, which led to some of his 1950s paintings being considered difficult to hang, partly due to their weight and according to some newspaper reports in case the paint fell off,Moira Jeffrey, "Still laying it on thick", in The Herald (Glasgow) 1 February 2002, p. 21 is not primarily the result of building up a lot of paint over time. It was in fact applied in a very short space of time, and may well have been scraped off very soon after application. This technique was not always considered positively, with the Manchester Guardian 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."Unsigned review, "Large paintings in narrow confines", in The Manchester Guardian, 11 January 1956 This intensity of approach and handling also did not always sit well with the art world that developed in Britain from the late 1980s onwards, with one critic at that time, Stuart Morgan, denouncing Auerbach for espousing "conservatism as if it were a religion" on the basis that he applied paint without a sense of irony.Stuart Morgan, "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes", in frieze, issue 21, March–April 1995

As well as painting street scenes close to his London home, Auerbach tended to paint a small number of people repeatedly, including Estella Olive West (indicated in painting titles as EOW), Juliet Yardley Mills (or JYM)Hannah Rothschild, "Man of Many Layers", in Telegraph Magazine, 28 September 2013 and Auerbach's wife Julia Auerbach (née Wolstenholme). He painted art historian and curator Catherine Lampert regularly from 1978 – when she organised his retrospective at the Hayward Gallery – until his death.Lampert, Catherine. "Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting". London: Thames & Hudson, 2015.

A strong emphasis in Auerbach's work is its relationship to the history of art. Showing at the National Gallery in London in 1994, he made direct reference to the gallery's collection of paintings by Rembrandt, Titian and Rubens.{{cite web |last=Bevan |first=Roger |date=1 July 1995 |title=Frank Auerbach, a modern master inspired by the Old Masters, on show at London's National Gallery |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/1995/07/01/from-the-archive-%7C-frank-auerbach-a-modern-master-inspired-by-the-old-masters-on-show-at-londons-national-gallery |access-date=14 November 2024 |website=The Art Newspaper}} 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, 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, mixed with another person and not with Auerbach's consent, are part of the basis for the character "Max Ferber" in W. G. Sebald's award-winning collection of narratives The Emigrants (1992 in Germany, 1996 in Britain).{{Cite news |date=22 September 2001 |title=The Guardian Profile: WG Sebald |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/sep/22/artsandhumanities.highereducation |newspaper=The Guardian}} He is celebrated in his obituary in The Times as a "reclusive giant of modern art",{{cite news |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/frank-auerbach-obituary-reclusive-giant-of-modern-art-shkzf2gp3 |title=Frank Auerbach: Reclusive giant of modern art |quote=Reclusive giant of modern art whose faithful sitters returned regularly and whose vibrant landscapes were limited to his locality |work=The Times |date= 13 November 2024 |access-date=15 November 2024 |url-access=subscription}} though his son Jake sees his father's reputation as a hermit as overstated, noting that he "was, in fact, fun to be with", enjoyed theatre and cinema, "loved pub quizzes and ... would join me and friends as a team member."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/dec/29/frank-auerbach-remembered-by-his-son-jake|title=Frank Auerbach remembered by his son Jake|date=2024-12-29|access-date=2025-01-05|work=The Observer|last=Auerbach|first=Jake}}

Personal life

He met Julia Wolstenholme at the Royal College of Art; they were married from 1958 until her death in January 2024,{{Cite web |year=1959 |title=Julia Auerbach (née Wolstenholme) |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp125962/julia-auerbach-nee-wolstenholme |website=National Portrait Gallery}}{{cite news |last1=Langer |first1=Emily |title=Frank Auerbach, revered painter of single-minded devotion, dies at 93 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/11/13/frank-auerbach-modern-artist-dead/ |newspaper=The Washington Post|date=13 November 2024}} though they separated for a dozen years in the 1960s and 1970s, later reconciling to form what their son called "an unorthodox but reasonably functional family". In 1958, their only child, Jacob "Jake" Auerbach,{{Cite web|date=12 November 2024|title=Frank Auerbach: British-German painter dies aged 93|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l9p45w9zvo|access-date=15 November 2024|publisher=BBC News|language=en-GB}} was born. A film director,{{Cite web |year=1978 |title=Frank Auerbach; Jake Auerbach |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw271358/Frank-Auerbach-Jake-Auerbach?LinkID=mp157151&role=sit&rNo=0&_gl=1*10d13cx*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTQ3NjIzMzc2Ny4xNzMxNjAxODY1*_ga_3D53N72CHJ*MTczMTYwMTg2NC4xLjEuMTczMTYwMTg2OC4wLjAuMA.. |website=National Portrait Gallery}} he produced a documentary film, Frank: by Jake, in which Auerbach comments on his 60-year career and a video walkthrough of one of his shows.{{Cite web |url=https://www.jakeauerbachfilms.com/product/frank-stream-hd/|title=FRANK |publisher=jakeauerbachfilms.com |access-date=26 November 2024}}{{Cite web |url=https://newlandshouse.gallery/events/jake-auerbach-presents-frank-at-newlands-house-gallery/ |title=Jake Auerbach presents 'FRANK' at Newlands House Gallery |publisher=newlandshouse.gallery |access-date=26 November 2024}}

His cousin is the German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki.https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jan/15/homecoming-show-for-artist-frank-auerbach-to-be-held-at-berlin-gallery

Auerbach died in London on 11 November 2024, at the age of 93.{{cite web |date=12 November 2024 |title=Frank Auerbach, leading figurative painter who fled Nazis, dies aged 93 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/nov/12/frank-auerbach-dies-aged-93-painter |accessdate=12 November 2024 |work=The Guardian}}{{cite news |author=Alex Greenberger |date=12 November 2024 |title=Frank Auerbach, Painter Who Redefined Portraiture, Dies at 93 |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/frank-auerbach-british-painter-dead-1234723626/ |work=ART News}}{{cite news |author=William Grimes |date=12 November 2024 |title=Frank Auerbach, a Celebrated and Tireless Painter, Dies at 93 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/arts/frank-auerbach-dead.html |work=The New York Times}}

Art market

The highest price to date for one of Auerbach's paintings was £5,565,200 ($7,079,855) for Mornington Crescent (1969) at Sotheby's, London, on 27 June 2023.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/modern-contemporary-evening-auction-2/mornington-crescent|title=Mornington Crescent | Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction, featuring Face to Face: A Celebration of Portraiture | 2023|website=Sotheby's}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishartfair.co.uk/blast-art-market-report/blast-9|title=BLAST #9|website=British Art Fair}}

Bibliography

Frank Auerbach, British Council, The British Council Visual Arts Publications (1986), {{ISBN|978-0-86355-037-9}}

Frank Auerbach, Robert Hughes, Thames & Hudson Ltd (1990), {{ISBN|978-0-500-27675-4}}
Frank Auerbach: Paintings and Drawings 1954–2001, Catherine Lampert and Norman Rosenthal, Royal Academy of Arts (8 October 2001), {{ISBN|978-0-900946-99-8}}
Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952–1962, Barnaby Wright, Paul Moorhouse and Margaret Garlake, Paul Holberton Publishing (2010), {{ISBN|978-1-903470-94-7}}
Frank Auerbach: Early Works 1954–1978, Paul Moorhouse, Offer Waterman & Co (2012), {{ISBN|978-0-9574188-0-6}}
Frank Auerbach, T.J. Clark and Catherine Lampert, Tate Publishing (2015), {{ISBN|978-1-84976-271-7}}
Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting, Catherine Lampert, Thames & Hudson (2015), {{ISBN|978-0-500-29399-7}}

Frank Auerbach, William Feaver, Rizzoli International Publications (2009); (2022), {{ISBN|978-0-8478-7210-7}}
Frank Auerbach: The Sitters, Piano Nobile Publications (2022), {{ISBN|978-1-901192-62-9}}

References

External links

[https://artuk.org/discover/artists/auerbach-frank-helmuth-19312024 Frank Helmuth Auerbach on ArtUK]
[https://www.benuricollection.org.uk/intermediate.php?artistid=45 10 artworks by Frank Auerbach] at the [https://benuri.org/ Ben Uri] site
Frank Auerbach: To The Studio documentary (2001) [http://www.jakeauerbachfilms.com/frank-auerbach-to-the-studio Jake Auerbach Films]
{{IMJ-Collections|first=Frank|last=Auerbach|accessdate=1 September 2016}}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20141011100718/http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/artist-Frank-Auerbach-52.html Marlborough Art Gallery, artists' page]
BBC Radio 3 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nc4kl interview] with Frank Auerbach
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Category:1931 births

Category:2024 deaths

Category:20th-century British male artists

Category:20th-century British painters

Category:20th-century German male artists

Category:20th-century German painters

Category:21st-century British male artists

Category:21st-century British painters

Category:21st-century German male artists

Category:21st-century German painters

Category:Academics of Camberwell College of Arts

Category:Academics of Ravensbourne University London