Frank Auerbach Charcole portraits

Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Borchardt, who had trained as an artist. Under the influence of the British writer Iris Origo, his parents sent him to Britain in 1939 under the Kindertransport scheme (although he has stated it was by private arrangement),^[2] which brought almost 10,000 mainly Jewish children to Britain to escape from Nazi persecution.^[3] Aged seven, Auerbach left Germany via Hamburg on 4 April 1939 and arrived at Southampton on 7 April.^[4] Left behind in Germany, Auerbach’s parents died in a concentration camp in 1942.