Two of the most innovative and celebrated artists of their time, Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud were also close friends for many decades. Though both artists are known most famously for their unique and influential approaches to oil painting, it is their intaglio prints that bring particular attention to each artist’s uncompromising, experimental process and ability to capture their portrait subjects both in likeness and in spirit.

Despite the immediate formal differences in their work, Auerbach and Freud pursued remarkably similar strategies to produce powerful and sensitive portraits. Working mostly with the same few subjects sitting in repeated sessions over many years, both artists believed that it was not only through meticulous observation that their portraits could be captured, but through a close, personal and long-term connection. It is for this reason that both Auerbach and Freud are usually known to render only their relatives and close friends in paint and print – the results of which the following selection of etchings celebrates. These masterful portraits produced over many decades are by no means subsidiary to the important painting works of these artists’ oeuvres, but in fact reveal other more experimental and collaborative aspects of their respective practices.

For Auerbach, etching provides multiple opportunities to work and rework, to rethink and reformulate. Shifting from techniques in oil painting and charcoal drawing, he often used trial and error to experiment with aquatint and acid baths, creating various thicknesses and qualities of line that give every one of his few editioned etchings a unique sensibility. Many of the resulting portraits, such as 'Ruth 2006', lay bare the processes and gridlines from which they have slowly evolved. Freud, on the other hand, approached his etchings with a meticulous realism, working on his plates on easels as if they were paintings. Through his intricate marks Freud is able to capture the subtlety of lines in the faces and fabric of his subjects, such as his studio assistant and confidant David Dawson, who sit or lie deep in suspense and contemplation. Both artists worked closely with the printmaker Marc Balakjian at Studio Prints in Camden, London and were able, much like with their own sitters, to nourish a productive and meaningful relationship with their collaborators over many years. For two artists who have spent many years as friends both living and working in London, it is exactly these kinds of close relationships that serve to establish their portrait etchings among the most poignant and accomplished in the medium.