Francis Bacon (painter)
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'''{{Infobox Artist
| name = Francis Bacon
| image = Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X.jpg
| imagesize = 300px
| caption = ''[[Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X]]'' (1953)
| birthname =
| birthdate = {{birth date|1909|10|28|df=y}}
| location = [[Dublin]], [[Ireland]]
| deathdate = {{death date and age|1992|4|28|1909|10|28|df=y}}
| deathplace = [[Madrid]], [[Spain]]
| field = [[Painting]]
| training =
| movement =
| works = ''[[Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion]]'' (1944)
''[[Painting (1946)]]'' (1946)
<br>''[[Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X]]'' (1953)
<br>''[[Figure with Meat]]'' (1954)
<br>''[[Portrait of Michel Leiris]]'' (1976)
<br>''Three Studies for a Self Portrait'' (1985)
| patrons =
| awards =
}}
'''Francis Bacon''' ([[28 October]] [[1909]] – [[28 April]] [[1992]]) was an Irish-born British [[Figurative art|figurative]] [[painter]]. He was a [[collateral descendant]] of the [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]] philosopher [[Francis Bacon]]. His artwork is known for its bold, austere, and often [[grotesque]] or [[Nightmare|nightmarish]] imagery.
==Early life==
[[Image:Francis Bacon's birthplace at 63 Baggot Street Dublin.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Francis Bacon's birthplace at 63 Baggot Street Dublin]]
Francis Bacon was born in [[Dublin]] to [[English people|English]] parents. His father, Eddy Bacon, was a veteran of the [[Boer War]] who became a [[Horse racing|racehorse]] trainer. His mother Winnie (née Firth), an heiress to a steel business and coal mine, was noted for her outgoing, gregarious nature, a stark contrast to her highly-strung and argumentative husband. Francis was cared for by the family [[Nanny|nurse]], Jessie Lightfoot. A sickly child with [[asthma]] and a violent [[allergy]] to [[dog]]s and [[horse]]s, Bacon was often given [[morphine]] to ease his suffering during attacks. The family shifted houses often, moving back and forth between [[Ireland]] and [[England]] several times during this period, leading to a feeling of displacement that would remain with the artist throughout his life. In 1911 the family lived in Cannycourt House near [[Kilcullen]], [[County Kildare]], but later moved to Westbourne Terrace, [[London]], close by to where Eddy Bacon worked at the [[Territorial Army|Territorial Force]] Records Office.
===Abbeyleix===
On returning to Ireland after [[World War I]], Bacon was sent to live for a time with his maternal grandmother, Winifred Supple, and her husband Kerry, at Farmleigh, [[Abbeyleix]], [[County Laois]]. Eddy Bacon later bought Farmleigh from his mother-in-law, though they soon moved again to Straffan Lodge in [[Naas]], [[County Kildare]], the birthplace of both parents.
Though Francis was a [[Shyness|shy]] child, he enjoyed dressing up. This, coupled with his [[Effeminacy|effeminate]] manner, often enraged his father and created a distance between them. A story emerged in 1992<ref>'I was told by a homosexual friend of Francis's that he'd once admitted that his father, the dreaded and failed horse trainer, had arranged that his small son spend his childhood being systematically and viciously horsewhipped by his Irish grooms.' - Caroline Blackwood in ''Francis Bacon (1909–1992)'' for [[The New York Review of Books]] Volume 39, Number 15 · [[September 24]] [[1992]].</ref> of his father having had Francis horsewhipped by their Irish [[Groom (horses)|groom]]. In 1924 his parents moved to [[Gloucestershire]], first to Prescott House in [[Gotherington]], then to Linton Hall, situated near the border with [[Herefordshire]]. Francis spent eighteen months boarding at [[Dean Close School]], [[Cheltenham]], from the third term of 1924 until April 1926. This was to be his only brush with a formal [[education]] as he ran away after several weeks.
At a [[Costume party|fancy-dress party]] at the Firth family house at Cavendish Hall, [[Suffolk]], Francis dressed up as a [[flapper]] with an Eton crop, beaded dress, lipstick, high heels, and a long cigarette holder.
In 1926 the family moved back to [[Ireland]], and Straffan Lodge. His sister, Ianthe (b. 1921), recalls that Bacon made [[drawing]]s of ladies with [[cloche]] hats and long cigarette holders.<ref>"I'm not sure Francis had a lot in common with my mother because, she didn't take much notice of his art or anything. I remember sometimes he brought home things that he'd drawn and, I don't know what my mother did with them she wasn't wildly interested in it. They were always, what we used to call 1920s ladies you know, with the cloche hat and, cigarette holder [''gestures long holder'']. That sort of thing. They were always drawings like that. They were very nice. What happened to them I don't know. — And, funnily enough I actually remember them." — Ianthe Knott (née Bacon) interviewed for ''Bacon's Arena'' dir. Adam Low ([[Arena (television)|BBC Arena]]), broadcast [[19 March]] [[2005]], at 9pm on BBC2.</ref> Later that year, Francis was banished from Straffan Lodge following an incident in which his father found him admiring himself in front of a large mirror draped in his mother's [[Undergarment|underwear]].
===London, Berlin and Paris===
Bacon spent the autumn and winter of 1926 in London, with the help of an allowance of £3 a week from his mother's trust fund, living on his instincts, simply 'drifting', and reading [[Nietzsche]]. When he was broke, Bacon found that by the simple expedient of rent-dodging and petty theft, he could manage a reasonable economy. To supplement his income, he briefly tried his hand at [[Domestic worker|domestic service]], but although he enjoyed cooking, he quickly became bored and resigned. He was sacked from a telephone answering position at a shop selling women's clothes in Poland Street, Soho, after writing a [[poison pen letter]] to the owner. He discovered that he attracted a certain type of rich man, an attraction he was quick to take advantage of, having developed a taste for good food and wine. One of the men was an ex-army friend of his father, another breeder of race-horses, named Harcourt-Smith. Bacon later claimed that his father had asked this friend to take him 'in-hand' and 'make a man of him'. Francis had a difficult relationship with his father, once admitting to being sexually attracted to him. Doubtless, Eddy Bacon was aware of his friend's reputation for virility, but not of his penchant for young men.
In the early Spring of 1927, Bacon was taken by Harcourt-Smith to the opulent, decadent, "wide open" Berlin of the [[Weimar Republic]], staying together at the [[Hotel Adlon]].<ref>"I went to [[Berlin]]. I wasn't in Berlin very long, but I did see Berlin about 1927–28, which was, one of the, what is called, the great [decadent years, they say, of Berlin. And I went with a, somebody, who had picked me up, whatever you like to say, and we went and stayed at the Hotel Adlon, which is the most wonderful hotel, because I always remember, the wheeling the breakfast in the morning, with these wonderful trollies with enormous swans necks coming out of the four corners. And then, the night life of Berlin at that time, to go down the [[Kurfürstendamm]] and that kind of thing was really very exciting in those times because I had never seen anything from coming from a very puritanical country, in a way, like Ireland, going to a city which at that time was wide open, was very exciting for me." — from an interview with David Sylvester (March 1984) in ''Francis Bacon: The Brutality of Fact'' dir. Michael Blackwood, for the BBC, broadcast [[16 November]] [[1984]] (used in interview 9, ''Interviews with Francis Bacon'' David Sylvester).</ref> It is likely that Bacon saw [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis (1927 film)|Metropolis]]'' during this time.
Bacon spent two months in Berlin, though Harcourt-Smith left after just one — "He soon got tired of me, of course, and went off with a woman...I didn't really know what to do, so I hung on for a while, and then, since I'd managed to keep a bit of money, I decided to go to Paris." Bacon then spent the next year and a half in [[Paris]]. He met Yvonne Bocquentin, pianist and connoisseur, at the opening of an exhibition. Aware of his own need to learn the [[French language]], Bacon lived for three months with Madame Bocquentin and her family at their house near [[Chantilly, Oise|Chantilly]]. At the [[Château de Chantilly]] (Musée Condé) he saw [[Nicolas Poussin]]'s [[Massacre of the Innocents]], a painting to which he was often to refer in his own later work. From Chantilly, he went to an exhibition that was largely to inspire him to take up painting. His visit to a 1927 exhibition of 106 drawings by [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]] at the Galerie [[Paul Rosenberg]], [[Paris]], aroused his artistic interest, and he often took the train into [[Paris]] five or more times a week to see shows and art exhibitions. Bacon saw [[Abel Gance]]'s epic silent film [[Napoléon (film)|Napoléon]] at the Paris Opéra when it premiered in April 1927. From the autumn of 1927, Bacon stayed at the [[Paris]] Hôtel Delambre in Montparnasse.
==1930s==
Bacon returned to London in late 1928 or early 1929, and started work as an [[interior design]]er. He took a [[studio]] in a converted [[garage (house)|garage]], 17 Queensberry Mews West, [[South Kensington]], and shared the upper floor with Eric Alden (who was later to become his first [[Collecting|collector]]) and his nanny, Jessie Lightfoot. In the first issue of Cahiers d'Art for 1929, Bacon saw Picasso's painted biomorphic figures, reproduced in an article by editor [[Christian Zervos]]: ''Picasso à [[Dinard]], Été 1928''. (Likely to have been bought either from Zwemmers bookshop, on the [[Charing Cross Road]], or in Paris.) The 1927 show at Rosenberg's in Paris had been of [[Neoclassicism|Neo-classical]] drawings, and it was the 1928 ''Les Baigneuses'' and ''Le Baiser'' in ''Cahiers d'Art'', that gave Bacon his direction as a painter.
Bacon was befriended by Geoffrey Gilbey, then the racing correspondent for the [[Daily Express]], and for a time worked as his racing secretary. Gilbey had a house in Ormonde Gate, [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]]. Bacon advertised himself as a "gentleman's companion" in [[The Times]], on the front page (then reserved for personal messages and insertions).<ref>"The replies used to pour in, and my old nanny used to go through them all and pick out the best ones. I must say she was ''always'' right. There was one time I found myself being taken back to Paris by this dreadful old thing who took a very expensive flat just off the [[Champs-Élysées]], on the rue 1er de Serbie. I didn't stay with ''him'' long, as you might imagine! But what was amazing was how easily you were able to pick up people in that way." — quoted in Peppiatt p.55.</ref> Among the many answers carefully vetted by Nanny Lightfoot was one from an elderly cousin of Douglas Cooper, at that time owner of one of the finest collection of [[modern art]] in England. The gentleman, having paid Bacon for his services, found him part-time work as a [[telephone operator]] in a London club and further sought Cooper's help in promoting Bacon's developing skill as a designer of [[furniture]] and interiors. Cooper also commissioned a [[desk]] from Bacon in battleship gray around this time.
In 1929 he met Eric Hall at the Bath Club, [[Dover Street]], London, where Bacon was working at the telephone exchange. Hall (who was general manager of [[Peter Jones (department store)|Peter Jones]]) was to be both [[Patronage|patron]] and lover to Bacon, in an often torturous relationship.
==='The 1930 Look in British Decoration'===
The first show in the winter of 1929, at Queensberry Mews, was of Bacon's carpet rugs and furniture (a rug was purchased by Hall), but may have included ''Painted screen'' (c.1929–1930) and ''Watercolour'' (1929), both bought by Eric Alden. ''Watercolour'' (1929) his earliest surviving painting, seems to have evolved from his rug designs, in turn influenced by the paintings and [[Tapestry|tapestries]] of [[Jean Lurçat]]. Sydney Butler (daughter of [[Samuel Courtauld]] and wife of [[Rab Butler]]) commissioned a glass and steel table and a set of stools for the dining room of her [[Smith Square]] house.... Bacon's Queensberry Mews studio was featured in the August 1930 issue of ''The Studio'' magazine, in a double page article entitled "The 1930 Look in British Decoration". The piece showed work including a large round mirror, some rugs and tubular steel and glass furniture largely influenced by the [[International style (architecture)|International Style]], [[Marcel Breuer]], [[Le Corbusier#Furniture|Le Corbusier]] / Charlotte Perriand and [[Eileen Gray]].
He returned to Germany in 1930. A dramatic studio portrait taken of Bacon by [[Helmar Lerski]], a Swiss photographer and cinematographer,<!--published in 'Köpfe des alltags' (Berlin 1931) --> probably dates from this visit. Bacon was later to tell [[Stephen Spender]] that he had been very impressed by the work of a photographer who had produced striking effects using mirrors and natural light filtered through screens, but that he could not remember the artist's name. Later that year <!-- 1930, often cited as 1929; de Maistre is not known to have been in London until mid 1930 when he settled there--> Francis Bacon met Roy de Maistre, an Australian painter who was to become a close friend and mentor. De Maistre's circle included [[Graham Sutherland]], [[Henry Moore]] and Douglas Cooper. A second exhibition was held between 4-22 November at 17 Queensberry Mews. Alongside de Maistre and Jean Sheppeard, Bacon showed four paintings and one print. ''Gouache'' (1929) may be the piece titled as ''A Brick Wall'' in the hand-list. ''Painting'' (1929–1930) (probably the work listed as ''Tree by the Sea'') is Bacon's earliest surviving oil painting. Both were bought by Alden. The two other paintings (''Self-portrait'' and ''Two Brothers'') and [[Printmaking|print]] (''Dark Child'' in an edition of three) are now lost.
Bacon left the Queensberry Mews West studio in 1931, and was not to have a settled space for some years. Bacon probably shared a studio with Roy de Maistre, about 1931/1932, at Carlyle Studios, (just off the Kings Road), in Chelsea. ''Portrait'' (1932) and ''Portrait'' (c.1931–1932) (the latter bought by Diana Watson) both show a round-faced youth with [[List of skin diseases|diseased]] skin (painted after Bacon saw [[Ibsen]]'s ''[[Ghosts (play)|Ghosts]]''), and date from a brief stay in a studio on the Fulham Road. In 1932, Bacon was commissioned by Gladys MacDermot, an Irish woman who had lived in Australia, to redesign much of the decoration and furniture of her flat at 98 Ridgmount Gardens in Bloomsbury. Bacon recalled that she was 'always filling me up with food'.
In April 1933, he moved to 71 Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea Road from [[Ebury Street]], where de Maistre had his temporary studio). The studio there was in a converted garage (like the Queensberry Mews West studio), a friend, the interior designer (and property developer) Arundell Clarke, had had his showroom there before moving on to Mayfair.
===Crucifixion (1933)===
Douglas Cooper, then curator (and part owner/co-director with Fred Mayor) of the Mayor Gallery, in [[Cork Street]], arranged for one of Bacon's paintings, ''Women in the Sunlight'', to be included in a group show in April 1933. It was also thanks to Cooper that Bacon's ''Crucifixion'' was reproduced in [[Herbert Read]]'s book ''Art Now'' (opposite a 1929 ''Baigneuse'' by Picasso — plates 60/61). The publication was accompanied by an exhibition of the works, in October, at the Mayor Gallery, where ''Crucifixion'' was shown as ''Composition. 1933''. ''Crucifixion'' was subsequently purchased by [[Michael Ernest Sadler|Sir Michael Sadler]] (who, other than friends or relations, was the first to buy a painting), and who also commissioned a second version, ''Crucifixion'' (chalk, gouache and pencil), and sent Bacon an [[x-ray]] photograph of his own [[skull]], with a request that he paint a portrait from it. Bacon duly incorporated the x-ray directly into ''The Crucifixion''.
===Wound for a Crucifixion===
[[Image:Composition (Figure).jpg|right|thumb|150px|''Composition (Figure)'' (1933) (gouache, pastel and pen and ink on paper)]]
At the start of 1934, with the help of Arundell Clarke, who had just taken over the building, Bacon set up a gallery space in the cellar of Sunderland House, [[Curzon Street]], [[Mayfair]], with plans to deal in his own work and organize his own shows. In February 1934, Bacon held his first solo show, ''Paintings by Francis Bacon'', of seven of his oil paintings and five or six [[gouache]]s, at the new Transition gallery. This was to be the only show at the Transition gallery. All but two gouaches of figures in flight (''Composition (Figure)'' (1933) (gouache, pastel and pen and ink on paper) and ''Composition (Figures)'' (1933) (gouache, pastel and pen and ink on paper)) purchased by his cousin Diana Watson were afterwards destroyed by Bacon. Among these was the ''Wound for a Crucifixion'', destroyed despite having a prospective purchaser in Eric Alden, and one of a very few that Bacon was to express regret at its loss.
Two studio interiors survive from 1934: ''Studio Interior'' (1934) and ''Corner of the Studio'' (1934) (purchased by Gladys MacDermot). ''Interior of a Room'' survives from circa 1935 (c.1933 in Alley/Rothenstein).
Bacon visited Paris in 1935, purchasing there a second-hand book on [[Oral pathology|diseases of the mouth]] containing high quality hand-coloured plates of both open mouths and oral interiors, which both haunted and obsessed him for the remainder of his life. (Bacon had [[Paranasal sinus|sinus]] problems since childhood and had undergone an operation on the [[Palate|roof]] of his mouth at some stage in the mid-1930s.) He also saw, for the first of many times, [[Sergei Eisenstein|Eisenstein]]'s ''[[The Battleship Potemkin]]'' in 1935,<ref>"Another thing that made me think about the human cry was a book I bought when I was very young from a bookshop in Paris, a second-hand book with beautiful hand-colored plates of diseases of the mouth, beautiful plates of the mouth open and of the examination of the inside of the mouth; and they fascinated me, and I was obsessed by them. And then I saw — or perhaps I even knew by then — the ''Potemkin'' film, and I attempted to use the ''Potemkin'' still as a basis on which I could also use these marvelous illustrations of the human mouth. It never worked out though." — from interview 2, (May 1966) (''Interviews with Francis Bacon'' David Sylvester)</ref> the scene of the nurse screaming on the [[Potemkin Stairs|Odessa steps]] later becoming a major theme in his paintings, with the angularity of Eisenstein's image often combined with the thick red palette of his recently purchased medical tome.
In the Winter of 1935-6, Roland Penrose and [[Herbert Read]], making a first selection for the ''International Surrealist Exhibition'' (which was to be held in London from 11 June to 4 July 1936), visited his studio at 71 Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, saw "three or four large canvases including one with a grandfather clock," but found his work "insufficiently [[Surrealism|surreal]] to be included in the show." Bacon claimed that Penrose had said to him "Mr. Bacon, don't you realize a lot has happened in painting since the [[Impressionism|Impressionists]]?" In 1937 (or late in 1936), Bacon moved from 71 Royal Hospital Road to the top floor of 1 Glebe Place, Chelsea, which Eric Hall had rented (and kept until 1943). [[Patrick White]] had moved to London, into a small flat in Ebury Street, in 1936, and, on meeting de Maistre in his ground-floor studio there, quickly fell in love with him. The following year, White moved to the top two floors of the building where de Maistre now had his studio, on Eccleston Street, and commissioned from Bacon, who was by now a friend, a writing desk (with wide drawers and a red linoleum top). White also bought the glass and steel dining table from Rab and Sydney Butler.
===Abstraction from the Human Form===
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:Abstraction from the Human Form.jpg|left|thumb|150px|''Abstraction from the Human Form'' (c.1936) (Destroyed)]] -->
In January 1937, at [[Thomas Agnew and Sons]], 43 Old Bond Street, London, Bacon was in a group show, ''Young British Painters'', with [[Graham Sutherland]], [[John Piper (artist)|John Piper]], Victor Pasmore, [[Ivon Hitchens]], Roy de Maistre, Ceri Richards, and Julian Trevelyan. Eric Hall, who was also a friend of Jerry Agnew, organized the show; Agnew's was then known for shows of [[Old Master]] paintings.
Four works by Bacon were shown: ''Figures in a Garden'' (1936), purchased by Diana Watson; ''Abstraction'', and ''Abstraction from the Human Form'', known from magazine photographs (they prefigure ''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944) in variously having a [[tripod]] structure (''Abstraction''), bared [[tooth|teeth]] (''Abstraction from the Human Form''), and both being biomorphic in form); ''Seated Figure'' is lost entirely.
''Figures in a Garden'' alone remains of paintings from 1936, however, a small [[Sketch (drawing)|sketch]] in black ink on lined paper, ''Biomorphic Drawing'', in the collection of the Estate, at the [[Hugh Lane gallery]], which resembles ''Abstraction'' (1936), may be a survivor from this year.
A small [[self-portrait]], putatively dated to 1930 and identified with the ''self-portrait'' in the hand-list to the Queensberry Mews show, was exhibited at the ''Fine Arts and Antiques Fair, Olympia'', London in 1998; however, it has been claimed on technical grounds that it dates from 1937 onwards (the canvas board on which it was painted was not available until then<!--Richard Shone in ''The Times''-->, although this has been disputed). Stylistically, the work fits best around the mid 1930s<!--Sylvester inclines towards 1934-1935-->. The work has an unusual provenance (it was kept by Bacon until 1982 and then given away), but the attribution to Bacon is sound (although a detailed technical analysis remains to be done).
On 1 June 1940 Bacon's father died. Bacon was named sole [[Trustee]] and [[Executor]] of his father's will, which requested that the [[funeral]] be as 'private and simple as possible'.
===Figure Getting Out of a Car (c. 1939–1940)===
Bacon, unfit for active service, volunteered for [[Civil defense|Civil Defence]] and worked full-time in the [[Air Raid Precautions|ARP]] (Air Raid Precautions) rescue service. But the fine [[dust]] of bombed London worsened his asthma and he was discharged. So, at the height of [[The Blitz]], Eric Hall rented a cottage for Bacon and himself at Bedales Lodge, Steep, near [[Petersfield, Hampshire]].
[[Image:Man in a Cap.jpg|right|thumb|170px|''Man in a Cap'' (c.1943)]]
''Figure Getting Out of a Car'' (c. 1939 - 1940) was painted here but is known only from an early 1946 photograph taken by Peter Rose Pulham (taken shortly before it was painted over by Bacon and retitled ''Landscape with Car''). An ancestor to the biomorphic form of the central panel of ''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944), the composition was suggested by a photograph of Hitler getting out of a car at one of the [[Nuremberg rallies]], (Bacon claims to have "copied the car and not much else.")
''Man in a Cap'', and ''Seated Man'' (recto) / ''Man Standing'' (verso) (now separated), both on composition board and from about 1943<!--1941 - 1942 in Rothenstein/Alley, 1943 following Harrison-->, are abandoned works. The composition of ''Man in a Cap'' derives from a picture of [[Joseph Goebbels]] that appeared in [[Picture Post]]. A photograph of Hitler from the same issue was the basis for ''Seated Man'', and the more roughly painted ''Man Standing''.
==The Millais House studio, 7 Cromwell Place: 1943 - 1951==
Returning from Hampshire at the latter part of 1943, Bacon and Hall took the ground floor of 7 Cromwell Place, South Kensington, [[John Everett Millais]]' old house and studio. High vaulted and north lit, it had had its roof recently bombed - Bacon was able to adapt a large old [[billiard room]] at the back of the house as his own studio. Nanny Lightfoot, lacking an alternative location, slept on the kitchen table. Illicit [[roulette]] parties were held there, organized by Bacon with assistance by Hall, to the financial benefit of both.
Now home to the [[National Art Collections Fund]], the Millais house is just a short walk from the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], holder of a National collection of paintings by [[John Constable]], whose oil sketches were much admired by Bacon. It was also at the V&A that Bacon would first discover and study the photographs of [[Eadweard Muybridge]].
The April 1945 show ''Recent Paintings by Francis Bacon, Frances Hodgkins, [[Matthew Smith (artist)|Matthew Smith]], Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland'' at the Lefevre gallery (then on [[New Bond Street]], London) had two paintings by Bacon - ''[[Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion]]'' (1944) and ''Figure in a landscape'' (1945).
===Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion===
{{Main|Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion}}
[[Image:Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion.jpg|left|thumb|300px|''[[Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion]]'' (1944). Tate Gallery, London]]
''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944) is a key precursor to Bacon's later themes: the [[triptych]] format, the placement behind glass in heavily [[Gilding|gilded]] frames, the open [[mouth]], and the use of painterly [[distortion]]; the [[Erinyes|Eumenides]], or Furies, in the [[Oresteia#The Eumenides|Oresteia]] of [[Aeschylus]] and the theme of the [[Crucifixion]] (''Figures at the Foot of the Cross'' was the first attempt at the title).<ref>Nochlin, Linda. "Francis Bacon". ''Artforum International'', October 1996.</ref><ref name="Fuller">Fuller, Peter. "Francis Bacon. London." ''The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 127, No. 989'', August 1985. pp. 552-554.</ref> Completed in oil paint and pastel on Sundeala fibre board within the space of two weeks,<ref>Sylvester (1987), p. 13</ref> Bacon considered ''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944) to be the true start to his ''oeuvre'' - his [[masterpiece]] in the original sense. ''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944) was presented to the [[Tate Gallery]] by Eric Hall in 1953.
''Untitled'' (1944) a variant of the right-hand panel of ''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944) was shown at ''Francis Bacon: The Human Body'', curated by David Sylvester, at the [[Hayward Gallery]] in 1998.<ref name="mgale">Gale, Matthew. "[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=-1&workid=674&searchid=20597&roomid=false&tabview=text&texttype=8 Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, circa 1944]". Tate Gallery Online, November 1998. Retrieved on [[7 April]], [[2007]].</ref> A version of the left-hand panel: ''Study for a Figure'' (c.1944) was among the abandoned pictures in the 1964 [[catalogue raisonné]].
===''Figure in a landscape'' (1945)===
[[Image:Figure in a Landscape (1945).jpg|left|thumb|200px|''[[Figure in a landscape]]'' (1945)]]
A photograph of Eric Hall dozing on a seat in [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]] was the basis of the other painting in the Lefevre show, ''[[Figure in a landscape]]'' (1945) which was bought by Diana Watson and, in 1950, by the Tate Gallery (with the support of Graham Sutherland, then a trustee (1948 – 1954)).
''Figure Study'' (1945) was destroyed; ''Figure Study I'' and ''Figure Study II'' are from 1945 or 1946. ''Study for Man with Microphones'' (1946) was shown at the Lefevre gallery, (''British Painters Past and Present'' July - August 1946), and at the Anglo-French Art Centre, (''Seventh Exhibition'' November – December 1946). Bacon was clearly unhappy with this picture: it was listed as an abandoned work in the 1964 [[catalogue raisonné]], and was passed on to the Estate in 1992 as a slashed canvas.
At some point in 1947–1948, Bacon returned to make a second version, ''Study for Man with Microphones'' (1947-48) (shown February to March 1948 , at the [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York, ''Contemporary Painters'' (last (monochrome) plate in the catalogue by James Thrall Soby) as ''Study for Man with Microphones'' (1946); and from October to November 1962 in ''Francis Bacon'' at the Galleria d'Arte Galatea, [[Milan]] as ''Gorilla with Microphones'' (1945-46)).
Crucifixion (1933) (oil on canvas) was shown at the ''Summer Exhibition'' (July - September 1946) at the Redfern Gallery, 19/20 [[Cork Street]], London, and bought by Sir Colin Anderson.
===Painting (1946)===
[[Image:Painting 1946.jpg|left|thumb|180px|''[[Painting (1946)]]'' [[MoMA]]]]
If ''Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'' (1944) is Bacon's [[masterpiece]], then ''Painting'' (1946) has a good claim to be his [[Magnum opus]]. Originally to be a painting of a [[chimpanzee]] in long [[grass]] (parts of which may be still visible), he then attempted to portray a [[bird of prey]] landing in a field. Bacon described it as his most unconscious<ref>"La distinction aujourd'hui classique entre conscient et inconscient est très féconde, me semble-t-il. Elle ne recouvre pas tout à fait ce à quoi je pense par rapport à la peinture, mais elle a l'avantage de ne pas recourir à une explication métaphysique pour parler de ce qui échappe à la compréhension logique des choses. L'inconnu n'est pas renvoyé du côté de la mystique ou de quelque chose comme ça. Et c'est très important pour moi, parce que j'ai horreur de toute explication de cet ordre." ("The classic distinction today between the conscious and the [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]] is a useful one I think. It doesn't quite cover what I think about painting, but it has the advantage of not having to resort to a metaphysical explanation to talk about what cannot be explained in rational terms. The unknown is not relegated to the realm of the mystical or something similar. And that's very important to me because I loathe all explanations of that sort.") – Francis Bacon Entretiens avec Michel Archimbaud, 1992 (Francis Bacon in conversation with Michel Archimbaud)</ref> work - the marks suddenly suggesting this image - at once magnificent and appalling.
:FB:"Well, one of the pictures I did in 1946, which was the thing that's in the Museum of Modern Art…"
:DS:"The butcher-shop picture."
:FB:"Yes. It came to me as an accident. I was attempting to make a bird alighting on a field. And it may have been bound up in some way with the three forms that had gone before, but suddenly the line that I had drawn suggested something totally different and out of this suggestion arose this picture. I had no intention to do this picture; I never thought of it in that way. It was like one continuous accident mounting on top of another."
- Excerpt from the October 1962 interview with David Sylvester for the BBC.
[[Graham Sutherland]] saw ''Painting'' (1946) in the Cromwell Place studio, and urged his dealer, Erica Brausen, then of the Redfern Gallery, to go to see the painting and to buy it. Brausen wrote to Bacon several times, and visited his studio in early autumn 1946 and promptly bought the work for £200. (''Painting'' (1946) was shown in several group shows including in the British section of ''Exposition internationale d'arte moderne'' ([[18 November]] - [[28 December]] 1946) at the [[Musée National d'Art Moderne]], for which Bacon travelled to Paris.)
Within a fortnight of the sale of ''Painting'' (1946) to the Hanover Gallery, with the proceeds, Bacon had decamped from London to [[Monte Carlo]]. After staying at a succession of hotels and flats, including the Hôtel de Ré, Bacon settled in a large [[villa]], La Frontalière, in the hills above the town. Eric Hall and Nanny Lightfoot would come to stay. Bacon spent much of the next few years in Monte Carlo, short visits to London apart. From Monte Carlo, Bacon wrote to Graham Sutherland and Erica Brausen. His letters to Erica Brausen show that he did paint there, but no paintings are known to survive.
In 1948, ''Painting'' (1946) finally sold to [[Alfred Barr]] for the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in [[New York City|New York]] for £240. Bacon wrote to Sutherland asking that he apply [[fixative]] to the patches of [[pastel]] on ''Painting'' (1946) before it was shipped to New York. ''Painting'' (1946) is now too fragile to be moved from MoMA for exhibition elsewhere.
===Head I, Head II - Head VI===
[[Image:Head (1948).jpg|right|thumb|200px|''Head I'' (1948)]]
Bacon returned to London and Cromwell Place to paint, late in 1948. ''Head I'' was shown at the ''Summer Exhibition'' at the Redfern gallery from July to September 1948. By the end of 1948 Erica Brausen, who had advanced Bacon money for works, left the Redfern Gallery. Brausen had found private capital to start her own gallery in Mayfair. In the spring, a Bacon painting, presumably ''Head I'', was shown at Erica Brausen's new Hanover Gallery (and was noted by [[Wyndham Lewis]] in an exhibition review of 12 May 1949). Held between November 8 and December 10 1949 at the Hanover Gallery, ''Francis Bacon: Paintings; Robert Ironside: Coloured Drawings'', was in effect, his first professional one-man show (Robert Ironside's watercolors were on an upper floor). A series of six paintings ''Head I'' to ''Head VI'', with ''Study from the Human Body'' (1949) and ''Study for Portrait'' (1949) formed the core of the show with four other paintings by Bacon.
Bacon's paintings attracted the support of Wyndham Lewis writing in [[The Spectator]]: "''Head I'' differs from ''Head II'' - ''Head VI'' in one important respect: while the first is painted on [[hardboard]] and dates from 1948 (or 1947-8), the rest of the series date from 1949 and are painted on the reverse of a (commercially) primed [[canvas]]."
:"Well, I was living once down in Monte Carlo and I had lost all my money, and, I had no canvases left and so, the few I had I just turned them, and I found that the, that the, what is called the wrong side, the unprimed side of the canvas worked for me very much better. So I've always used them. So it was just by chance that I had no money to buy canvases with."
- Excerpt from an interview with Melvyn Bragg in ''Francis Bacon'' (1985), for the '[[South Bank Show]]' for London Weekend Television.
''Head II'' is, for Bacon, very thickly painted, this was one of very few instances when he had been able to 'rescue' a painting after it had become overworked and the weave of the canvas clogged<ref>DS:Have you managed to paint any pictures in which you did go on and on and the paint got thick and you still pulled them through? || FB:I have, yes. There was an early one of a head against curtains. It was a small picture, and very, very thick. I worked on that for about four months, and in some curious way it did, I think, perhaps, come through a bit.</ref> (as happened with two abandoned works on canvas from the ''Head'' series, from 1949, also in the 1949 Hanover show). The arrow, or pointer, [[Motif (art)|motif]] in ''Head II'' is taken from the book ''Positioning in [[Radiography]]'' by Kathleen Clara Clark, 1939.
[[Image:Head VI (1949).JPG|left|thumb|170px|''Head VI'' (1948) ([[Arts Council of England]])]]
''Head VI'' was Bacon's first surviving engagement with [[Diego Velázquez|Velázquez]]'s great ''Portrait of [[Pope Innocent X]] ''(three 'popes' were painted in Monte Carlo in 1946 but were destroyed). The Cobalt Violet [[mozzetta]], crimson in Velázquez's painting, may reflect Bacon's use of printed reproductions of the painting. Bacon later said that, although he admired "the magnificent color" of the Velázquez, Velázquez "wanted to make it as much like a [[Titian]] as possible but, in a curious way he cooled Titian".
An article by [[Robert Melville (art critic)|Robert Melville]] titled ''Francis Bacon'' appeared in the December 1949 – January 1950 issue of ''Horizon'' magazine (edited by [[Cyril Connolly]]). Melville placed Bacon in the context of [[Europe]]an painting and film, comparing and contrasting his work with that of [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]], [[Marcel Duchamp|Duchamp]], [[Sergei Eisenstein|Eisenstein]] and, in particular, [[Salvador Dalí]] and [[Luis Buñuel|Buñuel's]] ''[[Un Chien Andalou]]''. The piece, along with ''Reproductions of Paintings by Francis Bacon'', was printed between a short story by James Lord and an essay on the [[Marquis de Sade]] by [[Maurice Blanchot]]).
===The Colony Room===
[[The Colony Room]] is a private drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, also known as Muriel's after [[Muriel Belcher]], the formidable proprietor. Belcher, who had run a club called the Music-box in [[Leicester Square]] during the [[World War II|war]], had secured a 3pm - 11pm drinking licence for the Colony Room bar as a private-members club ([[public house]]s had¨to, by law, close at 2:30pm). Bacon was a founding member, and joined the day after its opening in 1948. He was 'adopted' by Belcher as a 'daughter', and was allowed free drinks and £10 a week to bring in friends and rich patrons. It was here that Bacon became friends with [[Lady Rose McLaren]].
Bacon met the painter and illustrator [[John Minton (artist)|John Minton]] in 1948. Minton was soon to become a regular at 'Muriel's, as were the painters [[Lucian Freud]], [[Frank Auerbach]], Timothy Behrens, [[Michael Andrews (artist)|Michael Andrews]], the two Roberts, Colquhoun and MacBride, and above all the sometime ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'' photographer, [[John Deakin]]. In 1950, Bacon met the art critic [[David Sylvester]], then best known for his writing on [[Henry Moore]] and praise for [[Alberto Giacometti]]'s work. Sylvester had admired and written about his work (first writing about Bacon for a French periodical, ''L'Age nouveau'', in 1948) but had erroneously perceived it to be a form of [[Expressionism]]. ''Head I'', in particular, at the 1949 Hanover Gallery show, was, for Sylvester, proof of Bacon's importance as a ''painter''. John Minton left for the West Indies in September 1950. Aware that Bacon was in need of money, Minton asked him to take over his post as a tutor at the school of painting at the [[Royal College of Art]]. On condition that he did no formal teaching, Bacon agreed. So for three months, he was on hand to talk to the students for two days a week.
''Painting'' (1950) and ''Fragment of a Crucifixion'' (1950) were among the works shown at ''Francis Bacon: Recent Paintings; Hilly: Paintings'', at the Hanover gallery, [[14 September]] - 21 October 1950. Also ''Study for Figure'' (1950) (destroyed) and ''Man at a Curtain'' (1949) - an abandoned work.
===Study after Velázquez===
[[Image:Figure in Frame (1950).jpg|right|thumb|150px|''Figure in Frame'' (1950)]]
This series of three paintings after Velázquez were painted for the September 1950 Hanover gallery exhibition. The exhibition was advertised as ''Francis Bacon: Three Studies from the Painting of Innocent X by Velázquez'' but the series was withdrawn before the start of the show by Bacon. In November 1950, after Bacon had gone off to South Africa, the Hanover gallery offered on his behalf ''Study after Velázquez'' (1950) to the [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]], for the [[Festival of Britain]] show ''Sixty Paintings for '51''. On his return in May, Bacon again withdrew the painting before it was shown, although it is in the catalogue to the exhibition. ''Study after Velázquez'' (1950) and ''Study after Velázquez II'' (1950) were sent to his art supplier for the frames and stretchers to be reused. Bacon apparently believed them destroyed.
''Study after Velázquez'' (1950) and ''Study after Velázquez II'' (1950) were rediscovered carefully rolled-up at Bacon's art supplier in September 1998 (and shown at the Tony Shafrazi gallery). ''Study after Velázquez II'' (1950) (also known as ''Untitled (Pope)'' (1950)) is an abandoned work. ''Study after Velázquez III'' (1950) is destroyed (but was photographed). In January 1951 Bacon was featured in ''World Review'' in ''The Iconoclasm of Francis Bacon'' by Robert Melville (describing ''Study after Velázquez'' (1950) seen at the studio and on the destruction of the three paintings in the series of studies after Velázquez; ''Fragment of a Crucifixion'' (1950) and ''Man at a Curtain'' (1949) are shown in monochrome).
''Study for Nude Figures'' (1950) (also known as ''Untitled (Crouching Figure)'' (1950)), and ''Figure in Frame'' (1950) (also known as ''Untitled (figure)'' (1950-1)), were among the abandoned paintings found in storage after the painter's death. ''Figure in Frame'' (1950), in particular, is a compellingly beautiful wreck, with thin dry-brushed paint on raw linen over a spectral smear and scrapes of oil paint.
By 1950, Bacon's affair with Eric Hall had come to an end - he no longer appears on the electoral register with Bacon and Jessie Lightfoot at 7 Cromwell Place - but he was to remain a loyal patron, friend and supporter. During November 1950, Bacon visited his mother in South Africa. This suited his asthma better than spending winter in London. Bacon was impressed by the African landscapes and wildlife, and took photographs in [[Kruger National Park]]. On his return journey he spent a few days in [[Cairo]], and wrote to Erica Brausen of his intent to visit [[Karnak]] and [[Luxor]], and then go via [[Alexandria]] to [[Marseilles]]. The visit confirmed his belief in the supremacy of Egyptian art, embodied by the [[Great Sphinx of Giza|Sphinx]]. He returned in the Spring of 1951.
On 30 April <!-- apr 31 in Peppiatt, the Estate has [[30 April]] --> 1951 Jessie Lightfoot, Bacon's old nurse, died at Cromwell Place. Bacon was gambling in [[Nice]] when he learnt of her death. Lightfoot was Bacon's closest companion and had joined him in London on his return from Paris, and had lived with him and Eric Alden at Queensberry Mews West, and with him and Eric Hall at the cottage near Petersfield, in Monte Carlo and at Cromwell Place. Stricken Bacon sold the 7 Cromwell Place apartment.
==After 7 Cromwell Place 1951 - 1953==
Bacon took a place in Carlyle Studios Chelsea near the [[King's Road, London|King's Road]] and, for a time, Bacon worked at the [[Royal College of Art]], in a studio lent by Rodrigo Moynihan. ''Head'' (1951), ''Figure with Monkey'' (1951), ''Study for Nude'' (1951), ''Portrait of [[Lucian Freud]]'' (1951), and a series of three popes ''Pope I'' (1951), ''Pope II'' (1951) and ''Pope III'' (1951) were shown at ''Francis Bacon'' at the Hanover gallery December 1951 - February 1952. ''Study for Nude'' (1951), which relates in form to ''Study for Nude Figures'' (1950), is one of very few paintings by Bacon for which a sketch for the composition survives (in Chinese ink over a photograph in a 1920s [[Naturist]] book ''Man and Sunlight'' by Hans Surén). ''Portrait of [[Lucian Freud]]'' (1951) is based on a photograph of [[Kafka]] printed as the frontispiece to Max Brod's ''Franz Kafka: eine Biographie'' Prague: 1937.
''Pope II'' (1951) was actually painted first in the 1951 series of three popes (''P. II'', ''P. I'', ''P. III'') based not so much on Velázquez's ''Portrait of Pope Innocent X'', but on a photograph of [[Pope Pius XII]] being carried on a ''[[sedia gestatoria]]'' through a fan vaulted room in the [[Vatican City|Vatican]]. (The series was hung as a triptych at the 1962 [[Tate Gallery|Tate]] retrospective.) The January 1952 ''Magazine of Art'' article by Sam Hunter: ''Francis Bacon: The Anatomy of Horror'', places Bacon in a British context, of [[Graham Sutherland|Sutherland]], [[Wyndham Lewis]] and [[Walter Sickert|Sickert]] (and even, in passing, [[Aubrey Beardsley]]). The article also reproduced two photographs Hunter had taken, in the Summer of 1950, of Bacon's photographic source material; Hunter had found the tables of the 7 Cromwell Place studio littered with newspaper clippings, magazine illustrations and reproductions torn from art books, he had arranged them to put the most images in frame and photographed them in situ.
==Later life==
{{main|Triptych, May-June 1973}}
In 1964, Bacon began a relationship with 39-year-old Eastender George Dyer, whom he met, he claimed, while the latter was burgling his apartment. A petty criminal with a history of [[borstal]] and prison, Dyer was a somewhat tortured individual, insecure, alcoholic, appearance obsessed and never really fitting in within the bohemian set surrounding Francis. The relationship was stormy and in 1971, on the eve of Bacon's major retrospective at the Paris [[Grand Palais]], Dyer committed suicide in the hotel room they were sharing, overdosing on [[barbiturate]]s. The event was recorded in Bacon's 1973 masterpiece ''[[Triptych, May-June 1973]]''. In 1974, Bacon met John Edwards, a young, illiterate, Eastender with whom he formed one of his most enduring friendships.
Bacon died of a heart attack on [[April 28]], [[1992]], in [[Madrid]], [[Spain]]. He bequeathed his entire estate (then valued at £11 million) to John Edwards. Edwards, in turn, donated the contents of Francis Bacon's chaotic studio at 7 Reece Mews, [[South Kensington]], to the [[Hugh Lane gallery]] in [[Dublin]]. Bacon's studio contents were moved and the studio carefully reconstructed in the gallery. Additionally draft materials, perhaps intended for destruction, were according to Canadian Barry Joule bequeathed to Joule who later forwarded most of the materials to create the Barry Joule Archive in Dublin with other parts of the collection given later to the Tate museum.
Bacon's Soho life was portrayed by [[John Maybury]], with [[Derek Jacobi]] as Bacon and [[Daniel Craig]] as George Dyer (and with [[Tilda Swinton]] as Muriel Belcher), in the film ''[[Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon|Love is the Devil]]'' (1998), based on [[Daniel Farson]]'s 1993 biography ''The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon''.
===Record sales of work===
On [[May 14]], 2008, the ''Triptych, 1976'', “a landmark of the 20th-century canon,” sold at Sotheby's contemporary art sale for €55,465 million ($86.28 million), a record for the artist at auction. Sold by the [[Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix|Moueix]] family, producers of [[Château Pétrus]] wines,<ref name=nyt>{{cite web|last= Vogel |first= Carol, ''The New York Times'' |title= Bacon Painting Auctioned for Record $86 Million |url= http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/arts/design/14cnd-auction.html?hp |date= May 14, 2008 }}</ref> it was bought by the Russian billionaire [[Roman Abramovich]].<ref name=ind>{{cite web|last= Burns |first= Ciar, ''The Independent'' |title= Roman's empire: where Abramovich spends his billions |url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/romans-empire-where-abramovich-spends-his-billions-830582.html |date= May 19, 2008 }}</ref> The sale broke the 2007 record for his work of €34,212 million ($52.68 million). The triptych had remained in the same European collection since its 1977 purchase from a London gallery.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1454325620080515?sp=true |last= Michaud |first= Christopher, ''Reuters.com'' |title= Bacon painting sets postwar auction record |date= May 15, 2008}}</ref>
==Notes==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:Interviews with Francis Bacon (1993).jpg|right|thumb|198px|''Interviews with Francis Bacon'' (revised edition 1993)]] -->
* Archimbaud, Michel (1994) ''Francis Bacon: The Final Vision'' New York: Phaidon Press ISBN 0-7148-2983-8
* Baldassari, Anne (2005) ''Bacon-Picasso: The Life of Images'' London: Flammarion ISBN 2-08-030486-0
* Brighton, Andrew (2001) ''Francis Bacon'' London: Tate Publishing Ltd ISBN 1-85437-307-2
* Cappock, Margarita (2005) ''Francis Bacon's Studio'' London: Merrell Publishers Ltd ISBN 1-85894-276-4
* Deleuze, Gilles (2004) ''Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation'' London: Continuum International Publishing Group - Mansell ISBN 0-8264-7318-0
* Domino, Christophe (1997) ''Francis Bacon'' London: Thames and Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-30076-3
* Edwards, John (2001) ''7 Reece Mews: Francis Bacon's Studio'' London: Thames & Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-51034-2
* Farson, Daniel (1994) ''The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon'' London: Vintage ISBN 0-09-930781-2
* Gale, Matthew; Sylvester David (1999) ''Francis Bacon: Working on Paper London: Tate Publishing Ltd ISBN 1-85437-280-7
* Hammer, Martin (2005) ''Bacon and Sutherland'' Boston: Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-10796-X
* Hammer, Martin (2005) ''Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads'' Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland ISBN 1-903278-66-X
* Harrison, Martin (March 2005) ''In Camera, Francis Bacon: Photography, Film and the Practice of Painting'' London: Thames & Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-23820-0
* Hunter, Sam; Peppiatt, Michael; Sylvester, David (1998) ''Francis Bacon: Important Paintings from the Estate'' New York: Tony Shafrazi gallery ISBN 1-891475-16-9
* Kundera, Milan; Borel, France (1996) ''Bacon: Portraits and Self-portraits'' London: Thames & Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-09266-4
* Peppiatt, Michael (1996) ''Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma'' London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0-297-81616-0
* Peppiatt, Michael (2006) ''Francis Bacon in the 1950s'' London: Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-12192-X
* Rothenstein, John (introduction); Alley, Ronald (Catalogue raisonnè and documentation) (1964) ''Francis Bacon'' London: Thames and Hudson Ltd
* Russell, John (1993) ''Francis Bacon'' London: Thames and Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-20271-0
* Schmied, Wieland (2006) ''Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict'' London: Prestel Verlag ISBN 3-7913-3472-7
* Sinclair, Andrew Francis (1994) ''Bacon: His Life and Violent Times''. London, Sinclair Stevenson, 1993; New York, Crown
* Steffen, Barbara; Bryson, Norman (2004) ''Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art'' Zurich: Skira Editore ISBN 88-8491-721-2
* Sylvester, David (1975, 1980, 1987) ''Interviews with Francis Bacon'' (revised edition 1993) London: Thames & Hudson ISBN 0-500-27475-4
* Sylvester, David (2000) ''Looking Back at Francis Bacon'' London: Thames & Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-01994-0
* Sylvester, David (1998) ''Francis Bacon: The Human Body'' London: Hayward Gallery ISBN 1-85332-175-3
* Sylvester, David (1996, 1997, 2002) ''About Modern Art: Critical Essays 1948-2000'' revised edition, London: Pimlico ISBN 0-7126-0563-0
* Todoli, Vincente (2003) ''Francis Bacon: Caged. Uncaged.'' Lisbon: Fundacao De Serralves ISBN 972-739-109-5
* Van Alphen, Ernst (1992) ''Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self'' London: Reaktion Books ISBN 0-948462-34-5
* Zweite, Armin (2006) ''Francis Bacon: The Violence of the Real'' London: Thames and Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-09335-0
==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://www.ebel-kunst.de ''The Francis Bacon Series'']
* [http://www.p-art.com/Zauner/francis_bacon/francis_bacon_making_of_deterius.php?&language=en ''Francis Bacon "Detritus" Book'']
* [http://www.ubu.com/film/bacon.html ''Bacon featured on an Emmy Award winning South Bank Show from 1985'']
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297899/ ''Documentary about Bacon and his views'']
===Select work===
* [http://www.hughlane.ie/fb_studio/worksonpaper.html ''Biomorphic Drawing'' (1930s)]
* [[Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion]] (1944)
* [[Figure in a landscape]] (1945)
* [http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collections/artist_search.php?enlarge=1&objectId=23847 '' Figure Study I'' (1945) (NG Scotland)]
* [[Painting (1946)]]
* [http://www.arthistory.cc/auth/bacon/head-vi.jpg ''Head VI'' (1949)]
* [http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/international/painting/b/plate_ipa00249.html ''Study from the Human Body'' (1949) (NG Victoria)]
* [[Study for Crouching Nude]] (1952)
* [http://www.math.sc.edu/~olmoj/images/bacon/man-dog.jpg ''Man with Dog'' (1953)]
* [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A272&page_number=3&template_id=1&sort_order=1 ''Study of a Baboon'' (1953) (MoMA)]
* [[Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X]] (1953)
* [http://www.artsmia.org/uia-bin/uia_doc.cgi/list/134?uf=mia_collection.ldb&key=paintings&noframes=x&hr=null&nd=355# ''Study for Portrait VI'' (1953) (MIA)]
* [http://www.queer-arts.org/bacon/large/pages/03.html ''Two Figures in the Grass'' (1954)]
* [[Figure with Meat]] (1954)
* [http://www.alexalienart.com/images/30.jpg ''Figures in a Landscape'' (1956-7)]
* [http://www.scva.org.uk/collections/robertandlisa/index.php?collection=64&collection_object=101 ''Study for Portrait of P.L., no. 2'' (1957) (Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts)]
* [http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_lg_10_1_2_3.html ''Three Studies for a Crucifixion'' (March 1962)(Guggenheim)]
* [http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/teaching/com202/face/com202-face-in-art_files/Bacon-head2.jpg ''Portrait of Man with Glasses III'' (1963)]
* [http://www.queer-arts.org/bacon/large/pages/06.html ''Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror'' (1968)]
* [http://homepages.pavilion.co.uk/lincreasey/selfport.jpg ''Self-Portrait'' (1971)]
* [http://www.alexalienart.com/images/painting72b.jpg ''Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud (sideways)'' (August 1971)]
* [[Triptych, May-June 1973]] (1973), Private Collection, New York
* [http://www.proa.org/exhibicion/sigloxx/salas/francis_bacon.html ''Two Figures with a Monkey'' (1973)] ([[Museo Rufino Tamayo]])
* [http://www1.uol.com.br/bienal/24bienal/edu/francis_bacon_g1.htm ''Study for Portrait (Michel Leiris)'' (1978)]
* [http://www.kultura-extra.de/kunst/feull/pic/francis_bacon_sfinge.jpg ''Sphinx - Portrait of Muriel Belcher'' (1979)]
* [http://www.honoluluacademy.org/cmshaa/academy/index.aspx?id=1011'' Three Studies for a Self-Portrait '' (1983)] [[Honolulu Academy of Arts]]
* [http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/SHAFRAZI/bacon98/b7.html ''Triptych'' (1991)]
===Sites===
* [http://www.francis-bacon.cx/ Francis Bacon Image Gallery] Extensive site with biography, images, and quotes
* [http://www.francis-bacon.com/ The Francis Bacon Estate]
* [http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=682&page=1 Tate Collection]
* [http://www.geocities.com/joopbersee/bac.html Tribute and 35 great links!] Biography, images, audio interviews, poetry & film.
* [http://www.artquotes.net/masters/bacon_quotes.htm ArtQuotes.net Bacon Quotes] Collection of art quotes and profile of the artist
* [http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=20 Francis Bacon gallery at MuseumSyndicate]
* [http://www.hughlane.ie/fb_studio/index.html Francis Bacon Studio] The Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin
===News and reviews===
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1226587,00.html £9.5m Bacon out of Tate's reach] - [[The Guardian]] - [[May 28]] [[2004]]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1294106,00.html Friend who inherited Bacon's £11m fortune went on 11-year spending spree] - [[The Guardian]] - [[August 31]] [[2004]].
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1241660,00.html Bacon triptych emerges from Tehran storeroom] - [[The Guardian]] - [[June 18]], [[2005]]
*Reviews of the exhibition ''Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads'', [[Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art]], Edinburgh, August-September 2005:
**[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=QNN0FDKOYDRTVQFIQMGSM54AVCBQWJVC?xml=/arts/2005/06/22/babacon22.xml A fresh side of Bacon] - [[The Daily Telegraph]] - [[June 22]], [[2005]] (with picture gallery)
**[http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/edinburgh2005/story/0,16078,1544027,00.html Face to face with Bacon] - [[The Observer]] - [[August 7]], [[2005]]
**[http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/edinburgh2005/story/0,16078,1545460,00.html?gusrc=rss The Beast Within] - [[The Guardian]] - [[August 9]], [[2005]]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1592075,00.html?gusrc=rss Bacon self-portrait on auction in 'Miss B's' collection] - [[The Guardian]], [[October 14]] [[2005]]
* [http://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/11767?NL215 Sale of 45 Francis Bacon pieces at Ewbank Auctions, Surrey, 24 April 2007]
<!--
<ref name=HughApril>"Davies": "One of my earliest memories, I was four or so, living near Curragh and heard the gunfire of cavalry men on manoevres around the house in the woods." - from an interview with Hugh M. Davies, [[3 April]] [[1973]].</ref>
<ref name=Peppiat p.24>Dead note "Peppiatt": 'I remember once, when I was absolutely broke, I got myself picked up by a man in Dover Street. He was Greek but he'd been living in London for a long time. And he was obviously a rich man. Well, after we had been in his bedroom, he went out into the bathroom. And I started going through his pockets. He must have been watching me in the mirror, because suddenly he came out and said, "What are you doing Francis?" and I said, "Well you know what I'm doing." Then he said, "You don't have to do that. Just ask." And he took me down to a bank and drew out one hundred pounds, which was a very large sum then, and gave it to me. It was a marvellous way to behave, and I've never forgotten it.' - quoted in Peppiat p.24.</ref>
-->
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
|NAME= Bacon, Francis
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION= [[Painter]]
|DATE OF BIRTH= [[28 October]] [[1909]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH= [[Dublin]], [[Ireland]]
|DATE OF DEATH= [[28 April]] [[1992]]
|PLACE OF DEATH= [[Madrid]], [[Spain]]
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Francis}}
[[Category:Francis Bacon (painter)|*]]
[[Category:Old Decanians]]
[[Category:Irish painters]]
[[Category:Modern painters]]
[[Category:Academics of the Royal College of Art]]
[[Category:People from County Dublin]]
[[Category:Anglo-Irish people]]
[[Category:Anglo-Irish artists]]
[[Category:Gay artists]]
[[Category:LGBT people from Ireland]]
[[Category:LGBT people from England]]
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:1992 deaths]]
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[[eo:Francis Bacon (pentristo)]]
[[fr:Francis Bacon (peintre)]]
[[gl:Francis Bacon (artista)]]
[[ko:프랜시스 베이컨 (화가)]]
[[is:Francis Bacon (listamaður)]]
[[it:Francis Bacon (pittore)]]
[[lt:Francis Bacon (tapytojas)]]
[[nl:Francis Bacon (schilder)]]
[[ja:フランシス・ベーコン (芸術家)]]
[[pl:Francis Bacon (malarz)]]
[[pt:Francis Bacon (artista)]]
[[ru:Бэкон, Фрэнсис (художник)]]
[[sl:Francis Bacon (slikar)]]
[[fi:Francis Bacon (taidemaalari)]]
[[sv:Francis Bacon (konstnär)]]
[[tr:Francis Bacon (ressam)]]