Frank Auerbach

A pivotal figure in post-war British art, Auerbach was celebrated for his emotionally charged portraits and cityscapes, rendered in vigorous and sculptural impasto. He developed a distinctive style marked by intense physicality and a profound commitment to the act of painting. His work explores the temporal qualities of vision, revisiting the same subjects - primarily close friends and the urban landscape of London - with obsessive dedication. He resisted abstraction, instead pursuing a raw, expressive realism. Auerbach’s prints reveal a similarly probing engagement with form and structure. His art stands as a testament to the resilience of figurative painting in the 20th century and the enduring power of observation.

His work is held in numerous international museums, and in 2015 The Sunday Times referred to him as "our greatest living artist". He was the subject of a major retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in 1978, and in 1986 he shared the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Biennale with the German artist Sigmar Polke. In 2015, Tate Britain staged another major retrospective of his work alongside the Kunstmuseum Bonn. He was also the subject of numerous solo shows at prestigious institutions, including the Royal Academy, the Van Gogh Museum, the Courtauld Gallery, and the National Gallery.