Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Frank Auerbach artist

Frank Auerbach was born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany in 1931; he was sent to England in 1939 and later attended St Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art, also studying in David Bomberg's evening classes at the Borough Polytechnic. In 1956 he held his first solo exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London, where he exhibited until 1963; He was represented by Marlborough Galleries from 1965 until their closure in 2024. An internationally acclaimed and exhibited artist, several major retrospectives have been held, including at Tate Britain in 2015.

Born: 1931 Berlin, Germany

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Frank Helmut Auerbach


Biography

Painter Frank Auerbach was born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany on 29 April 1931; his father was a lawyer and his mother a former art student. In 1939, at the age of eight, he was sent to England to escape persecution at the hands of the Nazis. His parents, who remained behind, perished in the Holocaust. Auerbach spent his childhood at Bunce Court, a progressive boarding school in Kent for Jewish refugees, where he excelled not only in art but also in drama. In 1947 he was naturalised a British citizen and moved to London, deciding, at the age of 16, to become an artist. He attended painting classes at the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, going on to St Martin’s School of Art, where he studied between 1948 and 1952, meeting fellow pupil Leon Kossoff in the Antique Room. Both subsequently attended David Bomberg’s revolutionary life drawing evening classes at the Borough Polytechnic, an antidote to their more formal teaching, which continued at the Royal College of Art (1952–55). In 1954 Auerbach took over Kossoff's former Camden Town studio (previously occupied by German émigré artist and activist Gustav Metzger, who also studied with Bomberg), where he continued to live and work until his death.

In 1956, shortly after completing his studies, Auerbach was given his first solo exhibition at Helen Lessore's Beaux Arts Gallery (where he continued to exhibit until 1963). His work was also exhibited at the Ben Uri Gallery, alongside other Jewish artists, in the same year. Auerbach rapidly gained a reputation as a young figurative painter of great power and, from 1965 until its closure in 2024, was represented by Marlborough Galleries in London (founded by émigrés Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer). Early in his career, Auerbach also taught part-time in a variety of posts, including a day a week at a Sussex girls’ school (where the headmistress 'regularly invited him to share a lunch of scallops and gin' (cited Lampert 2019, p. 72), and Sidcup, Bromley and Camberwell Schools of Art. At the latter, he worked one day a week from 1958–65, providing 'the strongest antidote possible' to William Coldstream's mathematical system. Under his powerful influence the studio became 'deep in charcoal, heavily worked paper, and paint scrapings', leaving a legacy that continued long after he moved on to the Slade (cited MacDougall 2019, p. 82). Auerbach is often associated with the circle of figurative painters including Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff, famously referred to by R. B. Kitaj in 1976, as 'the School of London', although Auerbach stated that he did not feel part of this or any group. Freud, one of Auerbach's closest friends and a collector of his work, bequeathed a collection of 45 Auerbach paintings and drawings to the nation, distributed to museums throughout the UK in 2011. In 1978 Auerbach was the subject of a major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London and in 1986 his work was selected for the British Pavilion of the 42nd Venice Biennale at which he was awarded the Golden Lion, along with Sigmar Polke.

Auerbach made some of the most resonant and inventive paintings of people and urban landscapes of recent times. He worked every day, returning continuously to a narrow range of subjects: landscapes near his Mornington Crescent studio in north London, and portraits featuring a relatively small number of sitters, many of whom he painted weekly over a number of years, including E. O. W. (Estella Olive West), Juliet Yardley Mills, his wife Julia (née Wolstenholme) and art historian and curator, Catherine Lampert. Auerbach spent a considerable time on each painting, making many preliminary drawings. In the early years, he would paint on top of the previous day’s work, creating work of sculptural proportions, such as Head of Helen Gillespie (1962-64, National Portrait Gallery). From the 1960s he began to scrape down the whole surface before the next attempt, each work involving numerous discarded versions, before the final image emerged. For practical reasons, he did not paint landscapes from life but worked from numerous drawings created on-site. Auerbach often cited his admiration for old and modern masters, including Rembrandt, Constable, Rubens and Picasso. As well as acknowledging their influence and the importance of the history of painting, he was also inspired by the intimacy of their subjects. At an exhibition at the National Gallery in 1994 he made direct reference to the institution's works, including in his paintings made after Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne from the 1970s and after Rubens's Samson and Delilah, made in 1993.

Auerbach continued to live and work in London until his death. Frank Auerbach died in London, England on 11 November 2024. His work is represented in numerous UK collections, including the Ben Uri Collection, British Museum, National Gallery, and Tate. An Auerbach retrospective was held at Tate Britain in 2015. In 2024 he featured in This Cultural Life on BBC Radio 4 and in the same year, the Courtauld Gallery, London presented Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads.

Related books

  • 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)
  • Catherine Lampert, Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting (London: Thames and Hudson, 2019)
  • Martin Gayford, Modernists and Mavericks: Bacon, Freud, Hockney and the London Painters (London: Thames and Hudson, 2018)
  • Timothy J Clark and Catherine Lampert, Frank Auerbach (London: Tate Publishing, 2015)
  • Barnaby Wright, Paul Moorhouse, Margaret Garlake, Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952–1962 (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2010)
  • William Feaver, Frank Auerbach (London: Rizzoli International Publications, 2009)
  • Jutta Vinzent, 'List of Refugee Artists (Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists) From Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945)', in Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006), pp. 249-298
  • Catherine Lampert, Norman Rosenthal, Frank Auerbach Paintings and Drawings 1954–2001 (London: Royal Academy, 2001)
  • Frank Auerbach: Recent Works 1990 (London: Marlborough Fine Art, 1990)
  • Robert Hughes, Frank Auerbach (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990)
  • Frank Auerbach: Recent Paintings and Drawings (London: Marlborough Fine Art: 1987)
  • Frank Auerbach (London: The British Council Visual Arts Publications, 1986)
  • Frank Auerbach: Recent Work (London: Marlborough Fine Art: 1983)
  • Frank Auerbach (London: Hayward Gallery, 1978)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Borough Polytechnic, London (student)
  • Bunce Court, Faversham, Kent (student)
  • Camberwell School of Art (teacher)
  • Ealing Art College (teacher)
  • Ravensbourne University London (teacher)
  • Royal College of Art, London (student)
  • Sidcup Art College (teacher)
  • Slade School of Fine Art (teacher)
  • St Martin's School of Art, London (student)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • The Charcoal Heads, Courtauld Gallery, London (2024)
  • Art Exit: A Very Different Europe, 12 Star Gallery in association with Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2019)
  • Architecture of London, Guildhall Art Gallery (2019)
  • Speech Arts: Reflection – Imagination – Repetition, Manchester Art Gallery (2019)
  • Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933–45, German Embassy in association with Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2018)
  • All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and Century of Painting Life, Tate Britain (2018)
  • Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud, Stadel Museum (2018)
  • Urban Landscapes, Pallant House Gallery (2018)
  • Exodus: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Bushey Museum (2018)
  • Heads Roll, Museums Sheffield, Graves Gallery (2018)
  • Land, Sea, Life, Abbot Hall Art Gallery (2017)
  • Bacon to Doig: Masterpieces from a Private Collection, National Museum Cardiff (2017)
  • Bacon, Freud and the School of London, Picasso Museum, Malaga (2017)
  • To Be Human, Manchester Art Gallery (2017)
  • Refugees: The Lives of Others, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2017)
  • Frank Auerbach, Tate Britain (2016)
  • People on Paper, Abbot Hall Art Gallery (2016)
  • London Calling: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Andrews, Auerbach and Kitaj, J Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (2016)
  • London Legacy: Auerbach, Andrews, and Freud, Abbot Hall Art Gallery (2016)
  • 100 for 100: Ben Uri Past, Present and Future, Christie's South Kensington (2016)
  • Unexpected: Continuing Narratives of Identity and Migration, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2016)
  • Out of Chaos: Ben Uri – 100 Years in London, Somerset House (2015)
  • Yard at Jerwood Gallery, Jerwood Gallery (2015)
  • Drawing the Nude: from Manet to Auerbach, Pallant House Gallery (2015)
  • Face Value: Portraiture from the Arts Council Collection, Abbot Hall Art Gallery (2015)
  • So Last Century: Art from the Laing Collection 1900–2000, Laing Art Gallery, (2011)
  • Unpopular Culture: The Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre (2010)
  • British Council Collection: Thresholds, Whitechapel Art Gallery (2010)
  • At the Edge: British Art 1950–2000, Harris Museum and Art Gallery (2010)
  • Let Us Face the Future: British Art 1945–1968, Fundacio Joan Miro (2010)
  • The Search for the Real: The Figure from Sickert to Auerbach, Pallant House Gallery (2009)
  • Frank Auerbach, Marlborough Gallery London (2009)
  • Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952–1962, Courtauld Gallery (2009)
  • Art Now: Beating the Bounds, Tate Britain (2009)
  • Frank Auerbach Etchings and Drypoints, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (2006)
  • Frank Auerbach, Venice Biennale (1986)
  • A New Spirit in Painting, Royal Academy of Arts (1981)
  • Eight Figurative Painters, Yale Center for British Art (1981)
  • Frank Auerbach, Hayward Gallery (1978)
  • Frank Auerbach, Beaux Arts Gallery (1956, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963)
  Frank Auerbach
   
Ben Uri collection

Frank Auerbach in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Frank Auerbach]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Frank Auerbach] in the Ben Uri Library