Frank Auerbach, leading figurative painter who fled Nazis, dies aged 93

Saved by a sponsorship that took him from Berlin to London as a child, the artist later fell in with Soho’s artistic crowd including Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud

Frank Auerbach, the artist who arrived in Britain as a Jewish refugee fleeing Hitler’s Germany and went on to become one of the most significant figurative painters of the postwar era, has died aged 93.

Over a career spanning seven decades, the British-German artist was known for his portraiture, as well as street scenes of Camden Town in north London where he kept the same studio for 50 years. He was also known for the unique way in which he created his work – repeatedly scraping the paint from versions he was dissatisfied with and starting again until the finished work could be so laden with paint that it threatened to wobble off the canvas.