Although I knew of their long and close friendship, it was only recently I learned that some of my favorite painters – Freud, Bacon, and Auerbach – were part of a movement called The School of London.   The term, coined by one of its other members, R.B. Kitaj,  was intended to apply to a group of British artists who championed figurative painting at a time when abstraction dominated the art scene.  Michael Andrews, Leon Kossoff, and David Hockney complete the group.

Ordovas, a commercial gallery in London, recently put together a very small show (twelve pictures in all) that celebrated not only the group’s brilliance, but its unwavering commitment to the human figure and to the cityscape at a time when abstraction prevailed elsewhere.  Every painting featured is a gem and a handful of them masterpieces.  At the center stand two extraordinary paintings of the same sitter: Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of George Dyer (1966) and Lucien Freud’s Man in a Blue Shirt (1965).

The paintings have never before been exhibited together.

Having been recently to several “blockbuster” exhibitions (for example the Picasso 1932 and Modigliani shows, both at Tate Modern), with hordes of visitors and scores of paintings, the Ordovas show was the perfect miniature counterpoint.  Alone in the gallery, I had time and space to look closely at each and every picture and marvel not just at the extraordinary talent of The School of London but also at the art of curation.