Frank Auerbach dies at 93: Famous painter who fled the Nazis as a Holocaust orphan dies at his home in London

British-German painter Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, has died at the age of 93, his representatives have announced.

Auerbach, considered one of the best painters of his generation, died Monday at his home in London.

During a career that spanned seven decades, Auerbach’s works were exhibited in major galleries around the world.

British-German painter Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, has died at the age of 93, his representatives have announced

Auerbach (pictured right with Lucien Freud in 2001), considered one of the best painters of his generation, died on Monday at his home in London.

Auerbach was born in Berlin in 1931 and came to England as a child refugee in 1939. He was one of six children sponsored by the writer Iris Origo.

Auerbach grew up in Bunce Court, then a Jewish-Quaker school in Kent. It is now a private home. His parents were sent to an extermination camp by the Nazis.

Auerbach recalled that at Bunce Court there was “no oppressive presence of harmful adults.”

After studies at St. Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, he devoted the remaining seven decades of his life to painting.

He lived and worked in the same north London studio from 1954 until his death, working 364 days a year, according to his gallery.

Together with the other post-war artists of the ‘School of London’, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff, he concentrated on figurative painting, regardless of changing artistic fashions.

He often covered canvases in thick layers of paint to create almost abstract but recognizable landscapes.

Auerbach represented Great Britain at the 1986 Venice Biennale and won the Golden Lion top prize.

In 1995 he had a rare solo exhibition at the National Gallery, where he recreated masterpieces by Rubens and Titian.

Auerbach’s work was purchased by major galleries in Britain, including the National Gallery, the Tate and the British Museum.

Galleries abroad, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery of Australia, also purchased his pieces.

The artist had little interest in money or expensive possessions and lived in Camden his entire adult life.

“If I moved, I would just lose a lot of work, and life is very short and I’m extremely slow. I don’t have time to move,” he once said.

Frank Auerbach pictured for his self-portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, 2002

Looking towards Mornington Crescent Station, by Frank Auerbach. In 2010 it sold for more than £1 million

Self-portrait, by Frank Auerbach, 1958. It was exhibited at the exhibition The Charcoal Heads at the Courtauld Gallery

The artist continued to paint every day until his last days.

His most recent exhibition, Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads, opened at the Courtauld Gallery in London in February.

Later in life his work brought high prices. In 2023, “Mornington Crescent” – one of many inspired by the urban streets near his home – sold at Sotheby’s for $7.1 million, a record for the artist.

“We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist, but we can take comfort in knowing that his voice will resonate for generations to come,” said Geoffrey Parton, director of Frankie Rossi Art Projects.

Auerbach married Julia Wolstenhome in 1958. They had a son, Jacob.