Brothers in paint: Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff
With the offer of works by both Kossoff and Auerbach in March as well as by David Bomberg, their tutor of the early 1950s Alastair Smart explores a connection between two artists that lasted more than 70 years
To help pay his way through art school, Frank Auerbach (b. 1931) took a job alongside his classmate, Leon Kossoff (1926-2019), in the latter’s family bakery in the East End of London. Auerbach would serve on one counter, selling bread; Kossoff on the other, selling cakes.
In time, the pair would leave the bakery behind and develop long, successful careers as artists, careers that are frequently considered in parallel. Auerbach himself claimed they ‘were like two mountain climbers roped together’.