Frank Auerbach and the unexamined life

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His art was the other interesting thing about him. Frank Auerbach, the painter who died on November 11, put blob of colour over encrusted blob of colour until his work was literally heavyweight. (A canvas of his took as much effort to lift as a bigger one by someone else.) Because super-thick impasto is such a cliché now — something chain hotels put on their walls — it is hard to understand how polarising it still was in the mid-20th century. This, plus Auerbach’s excusable indifference to the world outside the Primrose Hill to Islington corridor, cost him. It wasn’t until the second half of his life that he got his commercial and critical due as one of Europe’s major artists. 

What could be more interesting than such work, then? His personal lack of introspection. Because no one had more to be introspective about. As a child, Auerbach was sent to Britain from Nazi Berlin by his Jewish parents, whom he would never see again. Asked about this experience, he’d offer the following. “I’ve simply moved on.” “Life is too short.” “I’ve done this thing that psychiatrists disapprove of, which is blocking things out.” “There’s just never been a point in my life when I felt I wish I had parents.” “I’m not given to self-analysis.” When critics said his art was “surely” the expression of some inner turmoil, he’d stress how much fun it was to make. 

There is a point that needs constant remembering in metropolitan circles. Most people get through their lives without reflecting on their interior state very much. This behaviour is not just compatible with a functional life, but with a successful and happy one. It need not suggest “repression” — though in some cases does — so much as a genuine lack of interest in the subject of oneself. Believing otherwise is one thing that has come to mark educated liberals out from much of the rest of society. (And from quite a few educated liberals.)

As a child, Auerbach was sent to Britain from Nazi Berlin by his Jewish parents, whom he would never see again

It might also mark the west out from whatever it is now polite to call the non-west. According to the World Health Organization, the former has far more “psychologists working in the mental health sector per 100,000 people”. And this can’t be put down to resources alone. In countries as rich as Qatar, the UAE, South Korea and Japan, the number is three or fewer. In western countries, it is in the dozens, and sometimes 100-plus. Perhaps the western approach is better. Perhaps it has deep philosophical roots: in the centrality of the individual since Socrates, never mind since Jesus, never mind since Descartes. But it is a difference. The north Atlantic world, as its purchase on global events wanes, is going to have to get to know how other regions think. One finding might be a very different attitude to the self. Don’t assume that “British repression” is the outlier among nations. 

Of all the discoveries I made on my way up the social pole — that microwave ovens are naff, that it is “the south of France” not “southern France” — the most startling was the intense bourgeois belief in the power of self-examination, whether alone or in the presence of a paid professional. (And this was Britain. Imagine the same social ascent into the American upper middle class.) I don’t doubt that it does good things for people. I just fear that some of them think it is, or should be, universal. Lots of people now won’t date or befriend those who “don’t do work on themselves”. That is much more of the pool than you think, friend. 

Having been to three different Auerbach shows in 2024 (the best of which is still on at the Offer Waterman gallery in Mayfair), I qualify as an admirer of the work. But the personality behind it stands out no less. In the typical interview with Auerbach, the journalist would strive hard to locate his demons while the artist, without a hint of rudeness, and in fact with some bonhomie, implied the wild goose wasn’t worth chasing. At points in his life, it was his work that was nicely out of line with the times. At the end, it might have been the man himself.

Email Janan at janan.ganesh@ft.com

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