I take the view (and I am not alone in this) that Frank Auerbach is our greatest living painter. He has been based for decades in the same studio in Mornington Crescent, and has painted throughout that time the neighborhood in which I grew up. They are demanding works. There is nothing easy about them. Canvases thickly layered in paint, almost sticky, challenging you to see what you think you know and recognize in a new way. Sinewy, tough, uncompromising pictures that I love without knowing why.

He is also a brilliant portrait painter. Much like his old friend, Lucian Freud, Auerbach has painted a small number of friends over and over again and over many decades. There is an intimacy to the portraits and sometimes great tenderness. Again, they are not always easy, but they are often wonderful and affecting.

I could not resist this recently published collection of the portraits when I saw it on the tables at Hatchards. I was tempted to snap it up immediately until a bookseller told me that a small number of copies signed by Auerbach would be available soon. I waited patiently and was rewarded after a few weeks. His paintings sell for millions, but at least I have this beautifully produced book signed by one of my favorite artists.