Frank Auerbach (1931–2024)

Artist Frank Helmut Auerbach was born in 1931 in Berlin, Germany. In the late 1930s he was one of thousands of Jewish children who were sent to England to escape Nazi persecution. He later became a naturalised British citizen.

Auerbach first became known in the 1950s, achieved serious fame in the 1970s, and was still making work in his later years. He was famous for his thickly layered, almost sculptural paintings with deeply textured surfaces. His rigorous work ethic often saw him scraping off and repainting his canvases multiple times until he achieved the result he wa looking for. In his drawings he repeatedly drew pencil lines and then rubbed them out. He sometimes spent years changing and refining a piece of work.

Auerbach’s work mainly focused on portraits, urban landscapes and interior scenes. Many of the interiors he depicted were spaces he was very familiar with. Views of North London – especially Primrose Hill and the area between Camden High Street and Mornington Crescent – his local Camden theatre, the steps of St Pancras and Euston Road train stations, and exterior and interior views of his studio at Vincent Terrace have featured regularly. This work is titled Interior, Vincent Terrace, N1.

Although it’s a drawing, it shows the same vigour and layering with which Auerbach approaches his paintings. It blurs the lines between representation and abstraction: an exploration of space and memory rather than a mere depiction of a room. The quick, expressive lines give a feeling of movement. When you look at it you can almost imagine his hand moving across the paper.

Find out more

• Read Frank Auerbach's obituary in The Guardian.
• Read about him on BBC News.
• Read The Telegraph's obituary.
• Read his obituary in The Jewish Chronicle.