Mornington million – Frank Auerbach painting set to fetch a fortune

Published: 19 August, 2010
by TOM FOOT

A PAINTING of Mornington Crescent by a celebrated yet reclusive artist is expected to fetch £1million at auction.

One of the most important works by Frank Auerbach – who alongside Lucian Freud is considered to be one of Britain’s greatest living painters – has been put up for sale by a mystery owner.

“Looking Towards Mornington Crescent Station”, like the painter himself, has evaded the public eye.

Mr Auerbach, 79, politely declined to be interviewed when the New Journal dropped in at his studios on Tuesday. He said the oil painting would have meant a lot to him at the time but that it would have taken on “a new life” after he sold it.

It is part of a 1970s portfolio on Mornington Crescent – but its vibrant use of colour marks a radical departure from Mr Auerbach’s trademark monochrome style.

“The whole thing is sending the art world crazy,” said a spokeswoman at Bonhams, where the painting will be auctioned in November. 

Mr Auerbach’s celebrated works include paintings of the former Carreras cigarette factory, the old Camden Palace music venue, buildings in and around Primrose Hill and haunting portraits of hundreds of “sitters” from Camden Town.

In a rare interview in 2001, Mr Auerbach said he delighted in the “higgledy piggledy mess” of Mornington Crescent, adding: “I have painted it because I feel London is this raw thing – this extraordinary, marvellous unpainted city where whenever somebody tries to get something going they stop halfway through, and next to it something incongruous occurs.”

Mr Auerbach was born in Berlin in 1931 and escaped the Nazis in 1939 on the Kindertransport children’s train to Britain. His Jewish parents were both killed in concentration camps.

After enrolling at the Royal College of Art, he moved to Camden Town where he has lived and worked for more than 50 years.