In the wake of his passing, we celebrate the life of German-British artist Frank Auerbach (1934-2024), one of the great painters of the post-war era. 

Frank Auerbach moved to Britain as a young boy before the outbreak of World War II, separated from his parents who would perish at the hands of the Nazi regime. He subsequently remained in Britain and attended the Royal College of Art with Leon Kossoff, who became a close friend and contemporary. In addition to this formal training, both Auerbach and Kossoff were profoundly influenced by the teaching of David Bomberg, whose evening classes were held at the Borough Polytechnic between 1950 and 1954. 

The two painters would become leading figures of the School of London, working among and inspired by Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin and R.B. Kitaj. Notably, Auerbach was included in the landmark exhibition The Human Clay at the Hayward Gallery, London, 1976, organized by Kitaj, which would come to define this group of artists.

Auerbach's first solo exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London (1965) was met with mixed reviews. The critic David Sylvester praised this contentious body of work: "These paintings reveal the qualities that make for greatness in a painter — fearlessness; a profound originality; a total absorption in what obsesses him; and above all, a certain authority and gravity in his forms and colors."

This fearlessness endured and propelled the artist into global renown: Auerbach has been the focus of exhibitions around the world including a major retrospective at the Tate Britain and Kunstmuseum Bonn and solo exhibitions at The Courtauld Institue of Art and Fitzwilliam Museum. In 1986, he represented Britain in the Venice Biennale and was awarded the Golden Lion. Auerbach's work has been included in notable exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, Yale Center for British Art, the National Gallery, and beyond. 

L.A. Louver is proud to have exhibited the work of Frank Auerbach during key moments in our history, beginning in 1979 with The Knot of Life: Current British Painting & Drawing. 

New York Times Obituary