Frank Auerbach, renowned figurative painter and Holocaust survivor, dies at 93

Frank Auerbach, a renowned figurative painter and Holocaust survivor known for his thickly painted portraits and evocative street scenes of London, died peacefully Monday at his home in London. He was 93. The gallery Frankie Rossi Art Projects, which focuses on post-war artists like Auerbach, confirmed that he "died peacefully" early Monday at his home in London. Geoffrey Parton, director of Frankie Rossi Art Projects, said, "We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist but take comfort knowing his voice will resonate for generations to come."

Following the announcement of his death, several major museums and cultural institutions, including the National Gallery, paid tribute to his memory. Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger described Frank Auerbach as a "truly great and significant painter who followed his dedication and vision to the end."

Auerbach was born in Berlin, Germany, in April 1931 into a Jewish family. He was the only child of a Jewish lawyer, Max Auerbach, and his wife, Charlotte Nora Borchardt, an artist. In 1939, at the age of seven, he was sent alone to England on one of the Kindertransport trains, fleeing Nazi persecution, and never saw his parents again. His parents saved his life by putting him on a train from Berlin to London in 1939. His parents were both transported to Auschwitz and killed in 1942 during the Holocaust of Europe's Jews.

In England, Auerbach attended Bunce Court School in Kent, a progressive boarding school for Jewish refugee children, where he excelled in art and drama. He graduated in 1947 but felt ill-equipped for further education or a career. After graduating from Bunce Court, Auerbach gained a place at St Martin's School of Art in 1948. He later studied at the Royal College of Art from 1952 to 1955, graduating in 1955 with first-class honours and a silver medal. During his studies, Auerbach attended evening classes at Borough Polytechnic, where he was influenced by the expressive style of David Bomberg, a significant influence on his development.

Throughout a career spanning seven decades, Auerbach became one of Britain's leading 20th-century artists, known for his unique method of creating artworks heavy with paint. He repeatedly scraped off paint from versions he was not satisfied with and started over, producing thickly painted portraits and street scenes. His work is characterized by thick layers of paint and striking emotional resonance, including near-abstract but recognizable landscapes and brooding, occluded portraits.

Auerbach's paintings often featured the streets and parks of Camden Town in north London, where he lived and worked in the same "cramped" studio from 1954 until his death. He rarely left London, and many of his street scenes were painted in Camden Town, where he passed every day. Auerbach developed intense relationships with his models, often painting the same few sitters weekly and preferring to paint only a small circle of friends and family. Among his chief sitters were his wife, painter Julia Wolstenholme, model Estella Olive West, and Juliet Yardley Mills.

He was known for his unyielding seven-day-a-week work schedule, working in his studio 364 days a year, and referred to himself as a workaholic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, unable to access sitters, Auerbach turned to self-portraiture, unveiling a series of 20 new works at the Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert gallery in 2023.

Auerbach was part of a group of post-war artists known as the "School of London," which included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Leon Kossoff, with whom he maintained close relationships. These painters stood out against prevailing trends throughout their careers, especially through the years of pop, op, hyperrealism, conceptualism, minimalism, neo-expressionism, and innovation-for-the-sake-of-innovationism. They, very unfashionably at the time, held out for figurative art at a time when abstract art was all the fashion.

Auerbach represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1986, where he shared the Golden Lion award with German artist Sigmar Polke. He was the subject of major retrospective exhibitions at London's Hayward Gallery in 1978, the Royal Academy in 2001, and at Tate Britain in 2015. His work has been shown around the world, contributing to an increase in his popularity in the art market. In 2023, his painting "Mornington Crescent," inspired by the streets near his home, was sold at auction for £5.56 million (approximately 7 million dollars), setting a record for him. Auerbach's work stood for individual experience for more than half a century.

Auerbach once told The Guardian, "I'm trying to find a new way of expressing something. So I try all the other ways until I'm surprised by something I hadn't considered before." He said, "I was always aware of death because of my background. And in some curious way the practice of art and the awareness of the imminence of death are connected. Otherwise we would not find it necessary to do the work art finally does—to pin down something and take it out of time." He reflected on his dedication to painting, saying, "I've been extraordinarily lucky. If I hadn't been able to devote myself to painting, I'd have felt I had wasted my life."

In 1958, Auerbach married Julia Wolstenholme, a fellow student from the Royal College of Art, and they had a son, Jake, who became a filmmaker. They separated shortly after but reconnected in 1976. Earlier, he had a romantic relationship with Estella Olive West, who became his model for a long-running series of portraits. Auerbach is survived by his son, Jake.

Michael Craig-Martin, an artist and painter, said that Auerbach was "a great man as well as a great artist. He was an imposing figure of integrity in the British art world." Turner Prize nominee Sean Scully said, "Frank, like many great artists, came from a dangerous background that included brutal anti-Semitism. His loyalty to his subject, which was the difficult human head, and the majestic nature, produced obsessive originality." American artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa said, "Without a doubt, the best British painter of the last 75 years."

Sources: The Guardian, Ynet (Hebrew), Die Zeit, Kommersant, El Confidencial, ABC News, The Straits Times, The New York Times, Folha de S.Paulo, Financial Times, La República, AP, Milenio, The Independent, Hoy, France 24, Al Jazeera (English), ABC Color

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq