Frank Auerbach was born in Berlin, Germany in 1931 and became a naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom in 1947. Of Jewish descent, the painter was sent by his parents to London in 1939––escaping Nazi persecution yet forever dislocated from his family, who were killed at Auschwitz in 1942. In London, Auerbach emerged as a crucial figure of the cultural vanguard, first as a student at Saint Martin’s School of Art (1948-1952) and the Royal College of Art (1952 to 1955). Throughout his education, Auerbach studied separately under David Bromberg, a formative influence. Since his first exhibition at the Beaux-Arts Gallery in London in 1956, the artist has established himself as one of preeminent postwar painters. Auerbach has been the subject of over sixty solo exhibitions and is represented in more than forty institutional collections internationally. The artist has been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at Tate Britain (2015-2016) and most recently, Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads at The Courtauld (2024).