LONDON – Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany for Britain as a child and became one of the major artists of the 20th century, has died aged 93.

Auerbach’s Frankie Rossi Art Projects gallery announced Tuesday that the artist had died the day before at his home in London.

Born in Berlin in 1931, Auerbach arrived in England in 1939 as one of six children sponsored by the writer Iris Origo. It was part of a movement known as Transport for children who saved thousands of Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe in the months before World War II.

Auerbach was 7 years old and never saw his parents again. Both were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

“I did this thing that psychiatrists disapprove of, which blocks things,” Auerbach told the BBC eight decades later. “Life is too short, in my case, to ruminate on the past. »

He attended a Quaker-run boarding school in England alongside other refugees and war orphans, and after studying at St. Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, he devoted his life to paint.

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

Along with the other post-war artists of the “School of London”, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff, he focused on figurative painting regardless of changing artistic fashions. Auerbach coated the canvases with thick layers of paint to produce almost abstract but recognizable landscapes and brooding, masked portraits.

Auerbach told the BBC earlier this year that the “eccentric thickness” of the paintings was “an unintended by-product of me going on and on and repainting the entire picture from top to bottom each time.” .

“All art is born from dissatisfaction,” he said.

Auerbach exhibited his work from the 1950s but did not become famous until 20 years later. His first retrospective exhibition was at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1978. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1986, winning the inaugural Golden Lion prize. His most recent exhibition, Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads, opened at the Courtauld Gallery in London in February.

Later in his life, his work sold for high prices. In 2023, “Mornington Crescent” – one of several paintings 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 a remarkable artist, but we take comfort in knowing that his voice will resonate for generations to come,” said Geoffrey Parton, director of Frankie Rossi Art Projects.

Auerbach is survived by his son, Jacob Auerbach.