For Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud, art is a process of cognition: about the other, about oneself, and about the world. Their portraits are among the most uncompromising and innovative in contemporary art. On the occasion of important new acquisitions, the Städel Museum's Prints and Drawings Department presents 40 masterful prints and drawings by the two artist friends together for the first time.
About the exhibition
Frank Auerbach (b. 1931) and Lucian Freud (1922-2011) are among the most important figurative artists of English postwar art. From 16 May to 12 August 2018, the Städel Museum's Prints and Drawings Department will bring together major works by the two artists in a joint exhibition for the first time. "Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud. Faces" shows a total of forty drawings and prints, especially portraits, which are among the most uncompromising and innovative in contemporary art.
For nearly four decades, until Lucian Freud's death, the artists were close friends. They were united not only by their appreciation of each other's art, but also by the fate of having been born in Berlin to Jewish families. While still children, they had to flee or emigrate from National Socialist Germany to England. Their works are the expression of a very personal vision and experience and, despite great formal and stylistic differences, were created according to surprisingly similar strategies: For weeks, sometimes years, Auerbach and Freud persistently observed and portrayed the same people from their respective immediate surroundings. Repetition and limitation are means of concentration for them in their search for knowledge: about their counterparts, about themselves and about the world.
Text source and further information about this event: http://www.staedelmuseum.de/de/auerbach-und-freud
