In a photograph taken by John Deakin in 1963, Timothy Behrens, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews are huddled around a table at Wheeler’s in Soho. For Friends and Relations, the photograph has acted as inspiration for the Gagosian’s latest curation which features work by Freud, Bacon, Auerbach and Andrews.
Group portrait of painters (left to right) Timothy Behrens, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews at Wheelers Restaurant in Soho, London, 1963 © John Deakin / John Deakin Archive / Bridgeman Images
Featuring more than forty paintings from private and public collections, it positions Freud—in the centenary year of his birth—as the grouping’s central figure. Each painter was aware of the others’ practices, to the extent of occasionally competing with one another, but of the four, Freud alone collected his friends’ work. At various times throughout his life, he owned paintings by Bacon. At his death, he owned sixteen by Auerbach and one small oil by Andrews.
The exhibition highlights the connection between the artists’ practices, and includes portraits of each other as well as two by Auerbach formerly in Freud’s collection, on loan from British museums.
Portraiture was at the heart of Freud’s, Bacon’s, Auerbach’s, and, less directly, Andrews’s practices. The exhibition’s title echoes not only the four artists’ camaraderie and interrelationships, but also the intimate relationships between artist and sitter, including artist and lover, partner, and offspring.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue including installation views of the show and featuring essays essays by Martin Gayford and Florence Hallett, and an interview with Frank Auerbach by Richard Calvocoressi.
Friends and Relations is open now and runs through to January 28, 2023 at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London.
