Frank Auerbach's world is London, his home since 1947. The German-born figurative painter (b.1931) depicts the city and its inhabitants in thick, energetic, brilliantly colored brush strokes. His work, which includes landscapes and portraits that recall the Old Masters, has earned him a place among contemporaries such as Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, and R.B. Kitaj.This book is published to accompany a retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. With essays on the works, their place in Western art, and on the painter and his sitters, it brings Auerbach's art to a wider audience.