Frank Auerbach – London Building Sites 1952-62
Preview of Courtauld Gallery Display – Paintings of Post-War London
Aug 10, 2009
A forthcoming exhibition at London's Courtauld Gallery will feature a group of fourteen paintings, together with sketches and oil studies, by leading British artist, Frank Auerbach. Auerbach, a contemporary of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Leon Kossoff, has made a significant contribution to the British art scene in the post-war years.
The paintings of London's post-war building sites were produced during the early part of the artist's career. The display will explore Auerbach's artistic development revealing his creative processes and responses to the city's devastated landscape and subsequent recovery.
Frank Auerbach – About the Artist
Frank Helmut Auerbach was born on 29th April 1931 to Jewish parents in Berlin. Before their own death in a concentration camp, Max Auerbach and Charlotte Nora Burchardt arranged for their son to be sent to England, sponsored by the author Iris Origo, as part of the Kindertransport programme. He arrived in London in 1939 just before his eighth birthday.
Between 1947 and 1952 Auerbach studied at several institutions, including St Martin's School of Art, the Royal College of Art, and the Borough Polytechnic. His tutor at the Polytechnic was David Bomberg, the British painter and lithographer.
Frank Auerbach and His Art
During World War II London was devastated by the blitz with thousands of buildings badly damaged or destroyed. Auerbach was drawn to the bomb sites where workmen were removing rubble to clear the way for the foundations of the new capital.
London became a city of cranes towering above and around the building sites. The artist filled his sketchbooks with images of London's reconstruction capturing the powerful drama of these events. The resulting paintings show his responses as he watched order emerge from desolation. However, Auerbach would spend so much time working and reworking a landscape that by the time he completed the piece, the building had already been erected, and opened, long before the artist had even completed the foundations.
Highlights of the Exhibition
One of the highlights of the display will be Maples Demolition (1960), a reproduction of the devastated Maples furniture store. This painting is one of his most powerful. It records both the confusion and desolation of the bombed out site, as well as the excitement and optimism evoked by the mighty cranes, scaffolding and armies of builders.
Maples Demolition is dominated by thickly applied paint in varying shades of red and yellow. It contrasts sharply with many of his earlier paintings which were dominated by earth tones. The quantities of paint required to complete these large paintings was so great that during his early career the earth tones were the only colours he could afford!
Frank Auerbach – London Building Sites 1952-62 will be on view from 6th October 2009 to 19th January 2010 at The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, London.
Source:
- Hughes, Robert, Frank Auerbach, Thames and Hudson, 1990, ISBN 0-500-09211-7.
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