(Dublin, 1909 - Madrid, 1992)
Francis Bacon was the most celebrated English painter of the 20th century. He produced dramatic paintings focused on figure, a distorted figure in order to express isolation, brutality, and terror.
In 1945 he exhibited Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, a horrific triptych depicting half-animal, half-human creatures writhing in
anguish.
When this triptych was first exhibited at the end of the war in 1945, it secured Bacon’s reputation. The title relates these horrific beasts to the saints traditionally portrayed at the foot of the cross in religious painting. Bacon even suggested he had intended to paint a larger crucifixion beneath which these would appear.He later related these figures to the Eumenides – the vengeful furies of Greek myth, associating them within a broader mythological tradition. Typically, Bacon drew on a range of sources for these figures, including a photograph purporting to show the materialisation of ectoplasm and the work of Pablo Picasso.
(From the display caption at Tate Museum, May 2007)By depicting butchered bodies, misshapen figures, and spattered blood, Bacon seems to intend to underline the evils of man, rather than the virtues of Christ.
Most of Bacon's paintings, even his portraits were based on photographs. He smeared and smudged the paint so subjects were often transformed into nightmarish, ill-formed, slug-like creatures. Many of Bacon's figures seem to have their faces turned inside out and many are isolated / trapped by geometric or cage-like constructions.
(Figure in movement, oil on canvas, 1985)
LIFEline
1914: Bacon's family move from Dublin to London
1928: Starts work as an interior decorator in London
1949: Starts Screaming Popes series - a nightmarish version of Velasquez's famous portrait of Pope Innocent X
This is one of the greatest /and most troubling/ British paintings which represents an attempt to reinvent Velasquez's painting in a valid manner for the mid-20th century.
In Velasquez's portrait the Pope comfortably rests his arms on the chair, reflecting his confident, composed bearing. In Bacon's pictures, the Pope's arms are tense and the hands grip the chair with desperation; the face is an image of terror, while the glasses are created with dabs of white paint; the lips and flesh tones are suggested by touches of local colour. Also the paint is smeared and spattered into the canvas and the brushstrokes are free. The yellow immediately catch the eye.
Velasquez potrays the Pope's public image, whereas Bacon seems to delve into Pope's private psychosis. (ART, The Definitive Visual Guide)
1954: Represents Britain at the Venice Biennale
1962-63: Retrospectives at the Tate Gallery, London and Guggenheim, New York
1971: Retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris
Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Triptych 1974-77, signed, titled and dated ‘Triptych May-June 1974 Francis Bacon’, (on the reverse of each canvas), oil, pastel and letraset on canvas, in three parts. Each 78 x 58 ⅛in. (198 x 147.5cm.). Executed in 1974, the central panel was reworked in 1977. Impressive and detailed material regarding Francis Bacon's art and life can be found
here
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