Frank Auerbach, renowned post-war painter, dies at 93

Frank Auerbach, the renowned figurative painter who fled Nazi Germany as a child, has died aged 93. Having escaped to Britain via the Kindertransport scheme, Auerbach enjoyed a highly acclaimed career spanning seven decades, with his works displayed at every major national gallery around the world.

- MAIRA BUTT

Known for his portraiture, as well as for his street scenes of Camden in north London, where he kept a studio for 50 years, Auerbach rubbed shoulders with the likes of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon in Soho during the 1970s.

“Frank Auerbach, one of the greatest painters of our age, died peacefully in the early hours of Monday 11 November at his home in London,” said Geoffrey Parton, director of Auerbach’s gallery, Frankie Rossi Art Projects. “We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist but take comfort knowing his voice will resonate for generations to come.”

In his final exhibition, held last year in London’s Mayfair, Auerbach reflected: “When one is young, one is excited by drama and when one’s old, truth is exciting.”

One of the most celebrated painters in Britain, Auerbach narrowly escaped being killed during the Holocaust. If he had not been evacuated, aged seven, on a small boat from Germany to England in 1939, he would probably have died in a concentration camp. That was the fate that befell his parents, who stayed behind.

Aged 10, Auerbach found out that his parents had been killed when their letters stopped arriving.

“I can’t even remember someone saying ‘Your parents are no longer alive.’ It was just gradually leaked to me,” the reclusive painter told The Independent‘s editor-in-chief Geordie Greig in an interview with the Evening Standard in 2009.