Contribution to V&A's 150th anniversary album

Frank Auerbach was a German-born figurative painter and draftsman whose densely layered works emerged from sustained study of a narrow circle of subjects and locations. Working primarily in charcoal, ink, and oil paint, he developed a gestural abstraction rooted in close observation rather than memory, often returning to the same model or London street corner across hundreds of drawings and paintings. His practice resisted both the geometric abstraction dominant in postwar modernism and the detachment of pop art, instead insisting on the artist's physical engagement with the motif. Based in London from childhood, Auerbach's work has been exhibited at the Courtauld Gallery and major international institutions.

Berlin, Germany