The life of Francis Bacon has all the elements of an exciting cinematic thriller: sex, violence, glory and money. The current retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain serves to remind us again that ultimately, Bacon was first and foremost an outstanding artist.
Bacon was born in Ireland in 1909, to an English family living in Dublin. His father, a Boer War veteran, taught horse riding, and his mother had inherited a steel business and coal mines. It was with marked irritation that his strict father noticed an increasing effeminacy in the young Francis, which reached its peak in an incident where the sixteen year old was caught by his father dressing up in his mother’s underwear, and admiring himself in the mirror. Francis left home and travelled to London, where he lived off an allowance from his mother, odd jobs, and occasional petty theft. It was in 1927 that a family friend, who had a secret weakness for young men, took him to Berlin for two months, and introduced him to the city’s decadent nightlife. Bacon then travelled to Paris, this time alone, where he would spend the next year and a half. Here he encountered and, as he himself admitted, was strongly moved by Nicolas Poussin’s “Massacre of the Innocents”, and a series of drawings by Pablo Picasso in the gallery of Paul Rosenberg. On his return to London he worked as an interior designer. He also started to have advertisements printed in The Times, offering his services as a “gentleman’s companion.”
Replies soon poured in, and it was a few of his admirers and lov
ers from this period who became the first collectors and patrons of the up and coming artist. Around 1930, at the age of only 21, he had already earned himself a considerable reputation as a designer and had received a number of prominent commissions for furniture design. It was also during this time that he increasingly started turning to painting as a medium. By the mid-thirties he had a number of exhibitions under his belt, albeit not particularly successful. While visiting Paris in 1935 he managed to see Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin”, and purchased a book dealing with various diseases of the mouth, vividly illustrated with numerous hand coloured images. Both these experiences came to be reflected in Bacon’s subsequent work. In 1936, the International Surrealist Exhibition took place in London, yet Bacon’s work was rejected by the renowned art critic Herbert Read on grounds that it was not sufficiently surreal.
ers from this period who became the first collectors and patrons of the up and coming artist. Around 1930, at the age of only 21, he had already earned himself a considerable reputation as a designer and had received a number of prominent commissions for furniture design. It was also during this time that he increasingly started turning to painting as a medium. By the mid-thirties he had a number of exhibitions under his belt, albeit not particularly successful. While visiting Paris in 1935 he managed to see Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin”, and purchased a book dealing with various diseases of the mouth, vividly illustrated with numerous hand coloured images. Both these experiences came to be reflected in Bacon’s subsequent work. In 1936, the International Surrealist Exhibition took place in London, yet Bacon’s work was rejected by the renowned art critic Herbert Read on grounds that it was not sufficiently surreal.
Initial BreakthroughsBacon was exempted from military service in the Second World War because of his chronic asthma. During this difficult time he made extra money by organising gamblers’ evenings in his house. The creation in 1944 of the “Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion” turned out to be a pivotal point in his career. The picture was exhibited the following year to great acclaim. However; this newly found appreciation paradoxically led Bacon to destroy as many of his previous works as he could get his hands on. He then proceeded to announce the well-received triptych as his first ‘mature work’. From the mid-forties onwards he became interested in studies of heads, exemplified in his of reworking of Velazquez’ famous “Portrait of Pope Innocent X” of 1650 (now in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome).
Testament to the dramatic growth of Bacon’s international acclaim at this time were numerous foreign exhibitions, and the purchase of one of his works by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1954 Bacon even represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale, together with Lucian Freud and Ben Nicholson. In contrast, the Czechoslovakian Pavilion, which stands not far from that of Great Britain, exhibited, among others, the following works: Václav Rabas’ “Tractors at Work”, “The Apprentice Miner” by Oskar Kozák, Jan Lauda’s “Lenin”, and “The Partisan” by Vincenc Makovský. The striking difference between East and West at the time could not have been more lucidly demonstrated.
Immortality
Ten years later, George Dyer entered the life of Francis Bacon. This meeting and subsequent romantic relationship between the artist and the thirty-nine year old with a criminal past had a great influence upon Bacon, both personally and creatively. He used to enjoy telling of how their unorthodox meeting had come about; the painter having apprehended Dyer while the latter was attempting to break into Bacon’s flat. Their passionate and complicated relationship was brought to an abrupt and violent end by Dyer in 1971 when he committed suicide the evening before the opening of a great retrospective exhibition of Bacon’s work in Paris. The artist was utterly devastated, and initially could not bring himself to accept that the death had been a suicide. In the years followed, still harrowed by a sense of guilt, he produced a series of paintings in honour of his dead lover. These rank among the very best of Bacon’s works, and in a way he succeeded, through these lasting mementos, in securing Dyer’s immortality. Bacon continued painting until the very last years of his life. He died in 1992 whilst on a visit to Madrid, coincidentally the city in which, over 300 years before, an artist who was to have such a great influence upon Bacon’s work, had also found repose; Diego Velazquez.
Ten years later, George Dyer entered the life of Francis Bacon. This meeting and subsequent romantic relationship between the artist and the thirty-nine year old with a criminal past had a great influence upon Bacon, both personally and creatively. He used to enjoy telling of how their unorthodox meeting had come about; the painter having apprehended Dyer while the latter was attempting to break into Bacon’s flat. Their passionate and complicated relationship was brought to an abrupt and violent end by Dyer in 1971 when he committed suicide the evening before the opening of a great retrospective exhibition of Bacon’s work in Paris. The artist was utterly devastated, and initially could not bring himself to accept that the death had been a suicide. In the years followed, still harrowed by a sense of guilt, he produced a series of paintings in honour of his dead lover. These rank among the very best of Bacon’s works, and in a way he succeeded, through these lasting mementos, in securing Dyer’s immortality. Bacon continued painting until the very last years of his life. He died in 1992 whilst on a visit to Madrid, coincidentally the city in which, over 300 years before, an artist who was to have such a great influence upon Bacon’s work, had also found repose; Diego Velazquez.
Bacon’s studioFrancis Bacon’s cramped little studio in London’s South Kensington, in which the by then established and famous artist had worked in up until his death, was donated to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin in 1997. Following a meticulous two-year process of analysis and documentation, the whole studio was transported and rebuilt, almost like a shrine in the Irish capital, opened to the general public in 2001. The contents of Bacon’s studio presented a number of considerable surprises to art historians, as well as the sensation-seeking public. Throughout his life Bacon always claimed in interviews that he never made preparatory sketches, insisting that he worked ‘a la prima’. Yet what he has left behind reveals that the opposite was the case. Amongst some 7500 objects found in his studio are around 1500 photographs which often directly inspired his works. The same might be said of various books, drawings, sketches, and the hundred or so cut up canvases. As has become apparent, Bacon not only studied, laboured over, and prepared his compositions, but also engaged in rigorous self-censorship.
Published in Art & Antiques, October 2008 (http://www.artantiques.cz/)
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