With the death of Bacon, Freud and Kitaj, Frank Auerbach emerges as one of the leading members of the Senior Generation of figurative painters. With a considerable number of color pictures as well as those in black and white which accompany the text portions of the volume. the British Royal Academy of Arts has given us a fine, sweeping introduction to his work. As is true of any painter who lays it on thick with complex inter-mixtures of oil paints, reproductions in a book are more limited vehicles for understanding the reality than they can do for less tactile artists. Nonetheless, aided by the fine text selections, one can achieve a fair degree of comprehension if one is fortunate enough to have seen some of his paintings "live" in the Marlborough Galleries or the Metropolitan ( or some other museum) if one lives in the United States where exhibitions have been limited. In the United Kingdom, of course, his work is more accessible. For me, use of a large diameter magnifying glass was quite helpful in 'framing' the paintings on the page while reading the discussion of that period in the development of his style. Thanks to access to the above named institutions, I was able to conceptualize the paintings pretty well while feeling some degree of the emotional as well as intellectual impact of his work. (As an aside, reading through and studying volumes on his close friend and fellow student of David Bomberg. Leon Kossoff, has helped provide a higher level of understanding of each. Like Auerbach, Kossoff is occasionally shown in the Mets modern gallery of larger sized pictures.) I can recommend this volume to anyone who is seeking knowledge of the diversity of figurative painting in the world today. Some years ago I was able to procure my copies of the book at much less than the prices shown here.
