Frank Auerbach and a day in London

I met one of my oldest friends J at the Courtauld Gallery to see the charcoal drawings of Frank Auerbach. He came without his parents to London, age 7, in 1939.  They died in the Holocaust.  He lived with his much older cousin, Gerda Boehm, who is drawn here. He made masses of these charcoal drawings*in the 50s and 60s. He is still working aged 93 in his original studio in Camden Town. I found beauty and tragedy equally in these drawings.
The first extra is the staircase, looking up.  The Courtauld is housed in Somerset House, by Waterloo Bridge, a Georgian building. There is a permanent collection of some real Impressionist treasures, my favourite is Monet’s Antibes.  He mostly lived and worked in Northern France, and when he got to Antibes he said he would need ‘a palette of diamonds and jewels’ to do justice to the light. I really would like to go to Antibes. Next is a familiar view east from Waterloo bridge, from St Paul’s to the Shard. And finally Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.  A lovely day out, and the sun shone some of the time:)
* I should have said he used an eraser to remove a lot of the charcoal, and also white chalk in some areas