Auerbach oil painting expected to sell for �1 million

A FRANK Auerbach oil painting of Mornington Crescent Station is expected to sell for between �800,000 to �1.2 million under auction.

Looking Towards Mornington Crescent Station (1972 -74) will be sold by Bonhams in New Bond Street on November 17. The painting has never appeared at auction before and hasn't been seen in public since the late 1970s.

Considered one of Britain's greatest living artists, Auerbach has been based in North London for his entire career, spanning over fifty years. His studio, which he has worked in since 1954, is five minutes walk from Mornington Crescent station.

Auerbach was born in Berlin in 1931, to Jewish parents. In 1939 they sent him to England to escape the Nazis as part of the Kindertransport programme, where he has lived ever since. His parents died in a concentration camp.

Auerbach is best-known for his paintings depicting female models as well as his scenes of London.

He has said of Looking Towards Mornington Crescent Station: "I have painted (Mornington Crescent) because I feel London is this raw thing. This extraordinary, marvellous unpainted city where whenever somebody tries to get something going they stop half way through, and next to it something incongruous occurs."

In June, Bonhams achieved the highest ever price at auction for one of Auerbach's small paintings with Head of E.O.W. III going for �860,000. Head of the gallery's 20th Century British Art Department, Matthew Bradbury, said: "The location of the work is very close to Auerbach's studio, but the other oils from this period depicting Mornington Crescent show the scene at night, whereas this is clearly the daytime with an upbeat and vibrant palette."

The painting has only had one previous owner who bought the work in the 1970s and will be exhibited in Bonhams's Madison Avenue gallery in New York in September.