Frank Auerbach
Frank Auerbach (1931-2024)
The famously reclusive German-born, London-based artist—long associated with artist peers such as Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff, Michael Andrews and Lucian Freud—made his home city, the National Gallery's masterpieces and a succession of regular sitters the subject of his timeless, unmistakable, work
Remembering Frank Auerbach, one of the leading artists of his generation, who has died aged 93
The German-born British painter, a leading figure in the School of London, produced some of the most enduring and perceptive observations of what it meant to be alive during his time
‘Like Picasso, everything he touched was wonderful’: the art world pays tribute to Frank Auerbach
Curators, institutions and critics remember a “humble giant of figurative painting” who worked from the same London studio for 70 years and made his home city, its art collections and inhabitants the subject of his unique output
From the archive | Frank Auerbach, a modern master inspired by the Old Masters, on show at London's National Gallery
Exhibition includes oil or acrylic paintings based on compositions owned by the gallery by Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt
From the archive | Immediacy of experience: Robert Hughes's 1990 monograph of Frank Auerbach
The author of "The Shock of the New" is both literary and discursive in the first book-length study of the German-born, London-based, artist
An expert's guide to Frank Auerbach: three must-read books (and a film) on the German-British painter
All you ever wanted to know about Auerbach, from a biography by one of his sitters to a collection of essays about his drawings—selected by the Courtauld Gallery curator Barnaby Wright
Interviews
Frank Auerbach was famously reclusive, devoted to life drawing and to daily work in his studio, but, once engaged—including on camera with the director and novelist Hannah Rothschild and with his film-maker son Jake Auerbach—he proved himself a witty interviewee, with an insightful take on art history and the contemporary scene
From the archive | Frank Auerbach: ‘The actual idiom of paintings is definitely changed. Drawing seems independent of time’
In this interview relating to an exhibition in Venice in 2019, Frank Auerbach discusses the importance of drawing in his work, from street sketches to working from the Old Masters
From the archive | 'Painting is mysterious and I don’t want to demystify it'—Frank Auerbach on refusing to 'perform' for the cameras
Arts programmes focus on Auerbach—around his exhibition at the National Gallery, in London—and the Tate Surrealism show
Exhibitions
Auerbach was the subject of a series of defining exhibitions at Marlborough Fine Art, in London, and at the National Gallery, the Courtauld and Tate—on his own terms and in company of his contemporaries and of his artistic hero Rembrandt
Courtauld Gallery takes a closer look at Frank Auerbach’s unique reworked charcoal drawings of friends and lovers
The London-based artist, who escaped Nazi Germany as a boy, developed a technique of repeatedly erasing and redoing his drawings, often over a period of months
All roads lead to Camden as Auerbach comes to town
Paintings of north London form cornerstone of Tate exhibition
One of Frank Auerbach's favourite paintings—unseen for 50 years—to go on show for first time
The artist had previously petitioned for "Primrose Hill, Hot Summer Evening" to be included in a 1978 Hayward show with no success, now it will finally feature in the first-ever exhibition of his landscapes
Together again: Gagosian exhibition celebrates Freud's centenary by reuniting the artist with his closest friends
The show will feature works by Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews and the photographer Bruce Bernard
Max Levai, former president of soon closing Marlborough Gallery, brings Frank Auerbach exhibition to Venice
The dealer will show 12 works by the German-British painter spanning 50 years of his career
Podcasts
Frank Auerbach and his work featured on episodes of The Art Newspaper's podcast The Week in Art
The $6.2m banana, Frank Auerbach remembered, Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s photographs of addiction in South Africa—podcast
Exploring this week’s New York auctions, which included Maurizio Cattelan’s now-infamous fruit, plus a tribute to the late German-British artist Auerbach and a chat with Sobekwa about a work from his powerful series, on view at the UK’s Sainsbury Centre
Auerbach at the Courtauld, Tania Bruguera on censorship, a Mughal-era masterpiece — podcast
A tour of a show of drawings by the renowned British artist, plus Bruguera discusses concerns over artist censorship in Germany in relation to the Israel-Hamas war, and a chat about an Indian painting from Howard Hodgkin’s collection
UK culture war: how should museums confront colonialism?
Plus, craft and American identity and critic Michael Peppiatt on Frank Auerbach
Books
Frank Auerbach was well served in his lifetime by critics and Boswells alike: from important monographs by Robert Hughes and William Feaver to his regular curator Catherine Lampert's first-person account of four decades of sitting for the artist
From the archive | Immediacy of experience: Robert Hughes's 1990 monograph of Frank Auerbach
The author of "The Shock of the New" is both literary and discursive in the first book-length study of the German-born, London-based, artist
Frank Auerbach’s drawings brought out of the shadows
A new book explores the artist’s scratchy, enigmatic drawings of people, long “crowded out” by his heavily textured paintings
An expert's guide to Frank Auerbach: three must-read books (and a film) on the German-British painter
All you ever wanted to know about Auerbach, from a biography by one of his sitters to a collection of essays about his drawings—selected by the Courtauld Gallery curator Barnaby Wright
From the archive | A challenge to time: Frank Auerbach's building site paintings
A review of the Courtauld Gallery catalogue of Auerbach's early London works and a new monograph by William Feaver
Art Market
From the early 1990s onwards, Auerbach's work sold strongly at auction in company with friends and contemporaries such as Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon
Contemporary art sales 1992: Saatchi succeeds at Sotheby's and Freud nude provokes Christie's bidding war
Contemporary art sales '92 auction report
Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s walk away from their contemporary sales claiming to have bettered their rival
Sotheby’s scored a superior strike rate, but marginally lower proceeds
Contemporary auction sales report: British art makes the great leap
Bacon and Auerbach triumphed as Sotheby’s and Christie’s racked up impressive totals
Contemporary sale report: School of London resilient in contemporary art auctions
Francis Bacon’s “Pope” fetches top price at Sotheby’s
