Home > Frank Auerbach

Auerbach was born in Berlin, but his parents sent him to England in 1939 to escape the Nazis (the family was Jewish). He has remained there ever since, taking British nationality in 1947.

He studied art first at St Martin's School of Art in London and later at the Royal College of Art. He also had lessons with David Bomberg who encouraged him to take inspiration from Paul Cezanne.

Auerbach is a figurative painter, usually taking personal friends as his subject, with three people being used time and again: his wife Julia; the professional model, Juliet Yardley Mills (usually referred to as J. Y. M. in titles); and his personal friend, Stella West (usually referred to as E. O. W.). He has also made a number of landscapes of scenes close to his London home, often taking building sites as the subject rather than the traditional hills and sheep.

Auerbach's work might broadly be called expressionist. Many of his paintings display an extremely thick impastoImpasto is a technique used in painting where paint is laid on the canvas very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. Impasto features strongly in many oil paintin, something which he was criticised for at his first solo show in 1956. The impasto is sometimes so heavy that the paint seems to have been sculpted rather than brushed on. In his building site pictures in particular, lines are sometimes defined not by their colour, but by a mark left by the stroke of Auerbach's painting-knife through thick paint.

A similarly sculptural aspect can often be found even in his drawings: Auerbach layers multiple sheets of paper as much as half an inch in thickness and in some parts of the drawing he may erase so heavily as to go through several sheets. This can be readily seen in the area surrounding the upper part of the head in his 1960 Head of Julia. [1]

The first major retrospective of Auerbach's work was presented in 1978 by the Arts Council of Great Britain for the Hayward Gallery, London, and then toured to the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. Other major shows have included "Frank Auerbach: Paintings and Drawings 1977-85" at the British Pavilion at the XLII Venice BiennaleThe Venice Biennale (Italian: Biennale di Venezia is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes places once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. History The very first Biennale was held in 1895; during the first ed (1986), where he shared the Golden Lion prize with Sigmar PolkeSigmar Polke (born 1941) is a German artist. His family escaped from the Communist regime in East Germany in 1953. Upon his arrival in West Germany, Polke began to spend time in galleries and museums and worked as an apprentice in a stained glass factory; "Frank Auerbach at the National Gallery: Working after the Masters" (1995), at the National Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery is an art gallery in London, located on the north side of Trafalgar Square, in a building designed by William Wilkins. It holds part of the National Collection, particularly Western European art from 1250 to 1900. Some British art is, presented drawings made over a thirty-year period from paintings in the National Gallery's collection; a major retrospective at the London's Royal AcademyThe Royal Academy is an art institution based in London, England. History It was formed to rival the Society of Artists after an unseemly leadership dispute between two leading architects, Sir William Chambers and James Paine). Paine won, but Chambers vow in 2001. Many of his works are in the permanent collection of the Tate GalleryThe Tate Gallery is an art gallery or museum, that was originally officially titled the National Gallery of British Art and was situated on Millbank in Pimlico, in London. It was founded in 1897 by Henry Tate with money earned from his sugar refineries.. [2]