Frank Auerbach: London Building Sites, 1952-62

See powerful paintings of post-war London building sites at The Courtauld Gallery in London.

Frank Auerbach: London Building Sites, 1952-62 at The Courtauld Gallery

See the capital in a new light as Frank Auerbach's remarkable paintings of post-war London are exhibited at The Courtauld Gallery.

The series of 14 paintings were produced during the first decade of Auerbach's career.

During this period, Auerbach emerged as part of a new generation of powerful British painters, alongside Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Highlights of Frank Auerbach: London Building Sites, 1952-62

The fascinating exhibition features the entire series of Auerbach's London building site paintings, which includes:

• Summer Building Site, 1952
• Building Site Earl's Court Road, 1953
• Shell Building Site from the Thames, 1959
• Maples Demolition Site, 1960
• Rebuilding the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square, 1962

You can also see some of Auerbach's few surviving pencil sketches (most of which he destroyed) and a selection of oil studies.

Through various interviews conducted especially for the project, Auerbach also gives a unique insight into the period and his work.

Frank Auerbach in Post-War London

Born in Berlin, Auerbach was sent to London at the age of seven after his Jewish parents were killed in the concentration camps.

The inspiration for Auerbach's powerful series of paintings grew out of his years spent in London as a young art student from 1947 to 1952.

The Blitz had levelled whole areas of London, destroying many buildings and leaving others severely damaged – apart from a lucky few survivors, such as St Paul's Cathedral.

During the long period of reconstruction, the city was dotted with cranes, workmen and the new steel-framed offices and flats, such as the Shell Building on the South Bank, London's first skyscraper.

Recently, Auerbach recalled, "London after the War was a marvellous landscape with precipice and mountains and crags, full of drama… and it seemed mad to waste the opportunity and not to take notice of the fact that there were these marvellous images… all around one".