London itself has changed dramatically since the School of London painters were starting out. It has become glossy, cosmopolitan, buoyed by the tremendous riches of Russian oligarchs, Indian tycoons, and investment bankers. Yet the three surviving members of the group appear not to care, or even notice.

"I hate leaving my studio," Auerbach told a London Times reviewer. "I hate leaving London. I don't think I've spent more than four weeks abroad since I was 7." The others may have traveled more (Bacon lived in Tangiers and the south of France and kept an apartment in Paris), yet they, too, continue to be as deeply attached to London, for all its apparent changes, as they are untouched by its art fads. Whether it is in spite of, or because of that, their paintings have now taken wing.

“The Power of Paint” was originally published in the June 2007 issue of Art & Auction magazine.