90 reasons to remember: Portrait of Anne Frank as old lady marks her birthday

An oil painting which depicts Anne Frank gazing from behind a mirror as a 90-year-old, watching over her teenage self, will be auctioned today.

‘Reflection’ by Scottish artist Fiona Graham-Mackay will go under the hammer tonight at the Anne Frank Trust UK’s Gala Dinner.

The work shows the teenage diarist in her bedroom, in the secret Prinsengracht annexe which she and her family lived for two years, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

The older Anne is imagined clutching her famous diary, a book of her writings kept while in hiding, published after the Holocaust and which has been read worldwide and printed in more than 60 languages.

Anne, who died in February 1945 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Germany, would have been 90-years-old today, and events have been taking place across the UK to commemorate what would have been her birthday.

• OPINION: We will never know the adult Anne Frank would have become

Tim Robertson, Chief Executive of the Anne Frank Trust UK said the piece of art, ‘Reflection’, “is a work of considerable depth, that conjures both poignancy and optimism.

“We are enormously grateful to Fiona for her generosity in having created this piece on our behalf and are produced and excited to be able to offer it at auction.

“It is a truly fitting tribute to Anne’s memory as a writer, a create and a humanitarian.”

Fiona wrote about her work for Anne Frank Trust UK, saying that while she grew up in the Nigerian jungle “Anne Frank became a friend when I was a child”.

“Her diary was one of only four books I had in our encampment. What Anne was writing, in an odd way, drew me closer to her as a friend – I was trapped in my jungle literally with a few adults.”

She added that in preparation for creating the portrait, the Trust arranged for her to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

“I walked around the house very early in the morning with the curator… before the House was open to the public. I had a true sense of the space that the family inhabited.”

“A world in nucleus. Civilised people trying to maintain a sense of normality, dignity and hope in a fearful uncertain world that was crumbling around them.”

The Anne Frank Trust UK will auction Reflection at its annual Gala tonight, to mark what would have been Anne Frank’s 90^th birthday.