Zürcher Nachrichten - Painter Frank Auerbach, contemporary of Freud and Bacon, dies at 93

EUR -
AED 3.843876
AFN 71.46757
ALL 98.334246
AMD 408.921785
ANG 1.890704
AOA 954.443474
ARS 1053.32585
AUD 1.613486
AWG 1.883771
AZN 1.777411
BAM 1.957876
BBD 2.118145
BDT 125.3629
BGN 1.957013
BHD 0.39446
BIF 3099.055767
BMD 1.046539
BND 1.413685
BOB 7.275713
BRL 6.06951
BSD 1.049112
BTN 88.441624
BWP 14.331193
BYN 3.43314
BYR 20512.173424
BZD 2.114642
CAD 1.476149
CDF 3003.568546
CHF 0.92896
CLF 0.037025
CLP 1021.630219
CNY 7.576684
CNH 7.599007
COP 4588.813899
CRC 534.605448
CUC 1.046539
CUP 27.733296
CVE 110.379907
CZK 25.325311
DJF 186.808039
DKK 7.458059
DOP 63.219772
DZD 139.884617
EGP 51.926973
ERN 15.698092
ETB 130.810926
FJD 2.382918
FKP 0.826051
GBP 0.834804
GEL 2.857518
GGP 0.826051
GHS 16.522516
GIP 0.826051
GMD 74.304489
GNF 9040.497654
GTQ 8.100355
GYD 219.482679
HKD 8.143422
HNL 26.50985
HRK 7.465237
HTG 137.694658
HUF 410.442515
IDR 16664.414117
ILS 3.813119
IMP 0.826051
INR 88.232015
IQD 1374.256881
IRR 44046.230248
ISK 145.09192
JEP 0.826051
JMD 166.494914
JOD 0.742309
JPY 161.133064
KES 135.589536
KGS 90.828533
KHR 4210.423334
KMF 490.77458
KPW 941.885118
KRW 1464.203166
KWD 0.322093
KYD 0.874227
KZT 523.84534
LAK 23039.424621
LBP 93943.491644
LKR 305.273628
LRD 188.824765
LSL 18.967508
LTL 3.090159
LVL 0.633041
LYD 5.134443
MAD 10.539974
MDL 19.17733
MGA 4902.196931
MKD 61.570856
MMK 3399.119344
MNT 3556.14103
MOP 8.407012
MRU 41.716441
MUR 48.894341
MVR 16.169403
MWK 1819.1285
MXN 21.51026
MYR 4.672826
MZN 66.874137
NAD 18.967508
NGN 1761.461771
NIO 38.600552
NOK 11.639084
NPR 141.509665
NZD 1.794919
OMR 0.402907
PAB 1.049112
PEN 3.973312
PGK 4.225996
PHP 61.721228
PKR 291.376995
PLN 4.317163
PYG 8173.665089
QAR 3.826984
RON 4.97703
RSD 116.988424
RUB 108.818843
RWF 1432.404838
SAR 3.9296
SBD 8.781084
SCR 14.253917
SDG 629.495812
SEK 11.542347
SGD 1.411358
SHP 0.826051
SLE 23.782645
SLL 21945.414172
SOS 599.529847
SRD 37.145882
STD 21661.253876
SVC 9.179732
SYP 2629.461642
SZL 18.962102
THB 36.348931
TJS 11.182634
TMT 3.673354
TND 3.327532
TOP 2.451098
TRY 36.233815
TTD 7.125554
TWD 33.959925
TZS 2773.329504
UAH 43.536654
UGX 3887.120826
USD 1.046539
UYU 44.716123
UZS 13458.267417
VES 48.752124
VND 26595.184038
VUV 124.247268
WST 2.92151
XAF 656.646852
XAG 0.034486
XAU 0.000398
XCD 2.828325
XDR 0.802451
XOF 656.653133
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.556352
ZAR 18.95356
ZMK 9420.11208
ZMW 28.927667
ZWL 336.985279
  • RIO

    0.6300

    62.98

    +1%

  • SCS

    0.4500

    13.72

    +3.28%

  • CMSC

    0.0578

    24.73

    +0.23%

  • NGG

    0.1500

    63.26

    +0.24%

  • BCC

    8.7200

    152.5

    +5.72%

  • BCE

    0.2500

    27.02

    +0.93%

  • RBGPF

    0.8100

    61

    +1.33%

  • BTI

    -0.0500

    37.33

    -0.13%

  • JRI

    0.1600

    13.37

    +1.2%

  • CMSD

    0.1200

    24.58

    +0.49%

  • RELX

    -0.1800

    46.57

    -0.39%

  • GSK

    0.1900

    34.15

    +0.56%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    6.79

    +0.29%

  • BP

    -0.4000

    29.32

    -1.36%

  • AZN

    0.7700

    66.4

    +1.16%

  • VOD

    0.1800

    8.91

    +2.02%

Painter Frank Auerbach, contemporary of Freud and Bacon, dies at 93
Painter Frank Auerbach, contemporary of Freud and Bacon, dies at 93 / Photo: Isabel INFANTES - AFP

Painter Frank Auerbach, contemporary of Freud and Bacon, dies at 93

Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany as a child and became one of Britain's leading 20th-century artists alongside Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, has died in London aged 93, his gallery announced on Tuesday.

Text size:

"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", Frankie Rossi Art Projects said.

Focusing on portraiture and quotidian cityscapes, the German-British artist was known for his artworks heavy with paint, created after repeatedly scraping the paint on his canvas and restarting until he was satisfied with his work.

He was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery in 1978 and also represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1986, sharing the grand prize, the Golden Lion, with German artist Sigmar Polke.

"We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist but take comfort knowing his voice will resonate for generations to come," said Geoffrey Parton, director of Frankie Rossi Art.

Born in Berlin in 1931, Auerbach came to Britain as a refugee in 1939. His parents were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp three years later.

Excelling in the arts at a boarding school for Jewish refugee children, Auerbach went on to study at London's St Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art.

He was active in Soho's artists circles in the 1950s and 60s, friends with influential British figurative painters Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Michael Andrews.

Auerbach was the last artist alive from the group, who were each other's friends and rivals, sharing ideas, models and an "unfashionable" pursuit of figurative art.

The painters "were seeing a lot of each other in the 1950s and 1960s," Richard Calvocoressi, who curated an exhibition on their relationships told AFP at the gallery's opening in 2022.

"They, very unfashionably at the time, held out for figurative art... at a time when abstract art was all the fashion."

- 'Act of creation' -

Auerbach, a private artist, said in a 2014 interview with the Guardian newspaper that he felt as though he was "always trying to catch up".

"It's only very recently, because I have lived for such an unconscionably long time, that I have felt that I have managed what you might call a little oeuvre," he added.

Working from the same "cramped" studio since 1954, Auerbach was described as obsessive, living in Camden Town in north London for most of his life and revisiting the same city scenes he passed every day in his paintings.

During his career spanning seven decades, he constantly returned to the same models for his portraits as well.

One of them, Catherine Lampert, who was a curator and a sitter for him over 37 years described him as living in the "immediate present".

She told the local Hampstead & Highgate Express newspaper in 2015 that for Auerbach, it was "all about the act of creation and solving problems by instinct and surprise".

Auerbach continued to paint through the Covid-19 pandemic, and, when unable to access sitters, turned to self-portraiture.

When asked what motivated him, Lampert, who curated a retrospective of his work in 2015, said he was "looking forward to making a few more paintings and having an easy death".

N.Zaugg--NZN