Frank Auerbach Quotes about Art

Frank Auerbach is a famous German born British painter, printmaker and draughtsman. He is best known for his very thickly painted, textural impasto works of nudes, portraits, and cityscapes. Famous Frank Auerbach paintings include “Head of E.O.W”, “Head of Gerda Boehm”, “Head of J.Y.M.”, “Mornington Crescent”, “Bacchus and Ariadne”, “David Landau”, “To the Studios”, “E.O.W. On Her Blue Eiderdown”, “Looking Towards Mornington Crescent Station – Night”, “The Camden Theatre”, “The Sitting Room” and “Primrose Hill”.

Mini biography: Born Frank Helmut Auerbach on the 29th of April, 1931 in Berlin, Germany. His mother was Charlotte Nora Borchardt and his father Max Auerbach was a patent lawyer. Auerbach married Julia Wolstenholme in 1958 and they have one child: Jake Auerbach.

List of Famous Frank Auerbach Art Quotes

I don’t think Seurat would have been aware of the dots – he would have been aware of what he was trying to do, the dots were an instrument. Frank Auerbach

I go out each morning and draw. I can’t really start a painting in the morning until I’ve done a drawing. Frank Auerbach

I started off as a superficial person who was attracted to the arts willy-nilly. The more I realized how difficult it was, the more I knew that it was a challenge, that I would feel I had wasted my life if I didn’t try to grapple with it. Frank Auerbach

In addition to the artistic influences, I am influenced by my current private life, my feelings about it and my energy level and state of health. Frank Auerbach

You will fail. But as Beckett very kindly said for all of us, ‘try again, fail better’. Frank Auerbach

I’ve got total sympathy with people trying to do different things. I think myself, that if there’s any sort of conflict or battle, it’s largely in the head of journalists because after all finally there’s nothing much you can say about painting which is pretty dumb in the sense of silent activity and it’s there to be looked at. Frank Auerbach

I think that the very earliest influence was a horror of having to work in a bank or an office, a desire for a free and creative life. Frank Auerbach

I hope I still have what Hemingway called the ‘shit detector’, that I’m still severe enough with myself if something is not finished to destroy it and start again. Frank Auerbach

I destroy things every day in the act of working and often recall a picture I had considered finished in order to rework it. Frank Auerbach

Once or twice when I was young I did try to go away for a couple of days, to Brighton or Oxford, for a break, and I just didn’t know what the hell to do with myself. I felt impatient and bored. But I can be alone working in London for days on end and feel completely happy. Frank Auerbach

I never work with an audience, I can’t do this. The process depends on the highest degree of nervous concentration. Frank Auerbach

Although I use much less paint now than when I couldn’t really afford it, 95% of it still ends up in the bin. I think I’m trying to find a new way to express something. So I rehearse all the other ways until I surprise myself with something I haven’t previously considered. Frank Auerbach

The two things I hope for now are to do more pictures and an easy death. All the rest is marginal. Frank Auerbach

Frank Auerbach Self Portrait Drawing

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Jenny Saville and other Famous British Artists.