Francis Bacon

(British-Irish, 1909-1992) 

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”
— Francis Bacon

Renowned figurative painter Francis Bacon’s raw, unsettling imagery is unforgettable. A uniquely tormented recorder of the human experience, his distressed, lurid visuals reflect a sensitive and conflicted side of humanity, revealing the shocking, fragmented, painful, and violent reality of the human condition. Bacon focused on the human form and biomorphic figures using themes of darkness and surreal lyricism. His themes attracted enormous attention, both harshly negative and glowingly positive. Bacon’s common subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, his friends, self-portraits, and abstracted figures within geometric structures. He often painted in diptych or triptych formats and would remain fixated on a single idea or subject for a long period of time. Bacon’s success as a modern artist flourished alongside an intense, chaotic, and difficult personal life, heavily laced with overwhelming sensuality, gambling, good-timing, alcoholism, and romantic turmoil. The artist’s warped expressions, extremely tender-looking flesh, and inescapable, penetrating emotional power entreat viewers to better understand him. Bacon’s artistic style has been referred to as Expressionist or Surrealist, but Bacon rejected both labels. His perspective was that his work was accurate regarding what he called "the brutality of fact" and thus closer to the world we see every day. In some sense, Bacon's work can be seen as rooted in realism - not in the recognized aesthetic tradition of avoiding stylization, but instead in a fidelity to the vital experience of living inside the body. Bacon's realism is, therefore, radically modern.

Bacon was born in Ireland to parents of English descent in October 1909. During the First World War (1914-18), his family relocated to London where his father, Anthony Bacon, served in the War Office. Afterward, they returned to Ireland, which had hardened with conflict and violence. Bacon’s formal schooling began when he boarded at the Dean Close School from 1924 to 1926. As his homosexuality emerged, he struggled with family relations. At 16, after being caught trying on women’s clothing, he moved to London without a plan and survived off of a three pound per week allowance supplied by his mother. A couple years later, in the summer of 1927, Bacon attended an exhibition at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg featuring drawings by Picasso. These drawings triggered the artist within Bacon, and soon he was creating drawings and watercolors without formal training, first in more of a Cubist manner, which transitioned into Surrealist.

His art career began with a false start. He painted his first true piece, Crucifixion, at age 23, and had some success with it. Collector Herbert Read purchased the painting and reproduced it in Read’s book, Art Now. After what appeared to be a promising start, his solo show at Transition Gallery in London in 1934, comprised of seven paintings and six gouaches and drawings, sold poorly and was noted badly in The Times. He returned to drifting life, spending time as an interior decorator, gambler, and bon vivant, and little work of his survived this harsh, early period. Bacon wouldn’t find a solid pace as an artist until the 1940s, when unable to serve in WWII due to his asthma, his artistic passion was reignited and he started producing what he considered to be the true beginning of his oeuvre. Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) brought him immediate attention. It was shown at Lefevre Gallery in London, and its undercurrent of pain and suffering was raw, exciting, and even frightening. The response was massive. Bacon rose in the art world and his work began to represent a crucial perspective for British post-war art. Bacon’s artwork gained even more popularity in the 1950s.

Even though his paintings were raw and existentially confrontational, when it came to human interaction, Bacon was charming, sociable, articulate, well-read, and charismatic, and it was portraits of his drinking companions and close friends that were the majority of his artistic output from the mid 1960s to early ‘70s. Some of his most admired paintings include portraits of his close friend and fellow painter, Lucien Freud, or Bacon’s longtime lover and muse, George Dyer. Bacon and Dyer’s relationship was turbulent and increasingly complicated by Dyer’s alcohol addiction and propensity as a troublemaker. Over forty of Bacon’s paintings are of Dyer, showing a timeline of their connection, from tender enchantment to hostility and resentment. In the year 1971, Bacon’s personal life and artwork experienced a shift. With the relationship clearly on its way out, Dyer took his own life with barbiturates on the night of Bacon’s retrospective opening at the Grand Palais in Paris. Bacon publicly put on a brave face, appearing resigned to critics, but confessed later to friends that his “daemons, disaster, and loss” now consumed him. His artwork consequently became more macabre. In his later years, Bacon also increasingly painted distorted self-portraits.

A heart attack ended Bacon’s life in 1992, but his immense artistic power endures. Bacon was a success during his lifetime, and continues to be after his passing. Academic and public opinion of the artist have risen steadily, and his work is among the most celebrated, high-priced and desirable on the art market. Although he destroyed many of his paintings, there are 590 surviving works. Solo exhibitions of Bacon’s work have been held around the world including in Japan, the United States, London, and Russia, even after his death. In 1989, Bacon was the most highly valued living artist, auctioning for upwards of $6 million at Sotheby’s. In the late 1990s, several major works resurfaced, previously having been assumed destroyed, and set record prices at auction. In 2013, his Three Studies of Lucian Bacon sold for over $142 million at Christie’s. Bacon’s fascinating painting style and subject matter, and their unique contributions to the world of art have made him a must-know artist who has had a significant impact and continues to have influence today.

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