Thread by @RobertBohan

Thread: Francis Bacon (1909-92) was Ireland’s greatest painter, as well as a major visionary. An Expressionist, his work was inspired by an Irish concern with religion & existentialism, a charged nihilism & a gay awareness. He was born on this day.

Born in Dublin & brought up in Kildare he found himself to be an outsider in terms of class, religion & sexuality. He was in London by 1926, enjoying the gay underworld and then Weimar Berlin (1927) & Paris (1928) before returning to London (1929).

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He met Peter Hall (1929) with whom he had a BDSM relationship. His first important works (self-portraits) were in 1931-2. 1933 saw him paint a Crucifixion which was badly received & he gave up painting for a while.

In 1937 he exhibited 4 works at Agnew’s in Young British Painters. In WWII he was found unfit for service & worked for the ARP. In 1943 he moved to 7 Cromwell Place. It was here his first masterpiece Three Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion (1944) was painted.

An inveterate gambler he set off for Monte Carlo with the proceeds of the sale of his work. His debts led him to painting on the rough reverse side of canvases - a lifelong process. Painting (1948) was sold to MOMA NY. It was around this time that nihilism became his focus

1949 saw him mount an exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, including Head I. Wyndham Lewis described him as ‘one of the most powerful artists in Europe’. 1950 saw him turn to the popes. Head VI was both a treatise on existentialism & a homage to Velázquez.

He was a denizen of the Colony Room, run by the redoubtable Muriel Belcher. Other regulars included Freud, Auerbach & the photographer John Deakin. Bacon worked in series of images & triptych forms. His was a dark vision of humanity

His beloved nanny (who lived with him & slept on the kitchen table) died in 1951. Lucian Freud (1951), Pope I (1951) & Dog (1952 & 1952). His work challenged in excavating the dark side of reality - a process informed by experience of the persecution, war & evil of the time.

Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953), Two Figures (1953), Figure with Meat (1954) & Study of a Figure (1954). Bacon presented humanity as decaying meat - a truly nihilistic perception of life.

Study for Portrait II (William Blake Death Mask) 1955, Man Drinking (1955), Figures in a Landscape (1956) & Self-Portrait (1956). These are cowering, struggling & disintegrating forms. Uncomfortable to look at but profound in their impact

Perhaps not as famed as his Velázquez homages are his more empathetically warmer studies of Van Gogh. Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh (1957), Study for a Portrait of PL (1957), Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh II (1957) & Van Gogh in a Landscape (1957)

He moved to the Marlborough Gallery in 1958. Pope with Owls (1958), Two Figures in a Room (1959), Head of a Man (1960) & Head of a Woman (1960). He continued his pope series with their discourse on religion as well as powerful portraits.

Bacon met his lover George Dyer in 1963. They indulged in epic drinking bouts. Dyer’s form was skewered across the artist’s canvases. They had a difficult relationship but Dyer helped keep Bacon’s feet on the ground. Triptych of Dyer (1964) & Human Body (1970)

One of Bacon’s greatest triumphs, was his retrospective in Paris (1971). It was however overshadowed by the suicide of Dyer. His death & Bacon’s grief would figure large in the painter’s work including the Black Triptychs. Triptych of Dyer (1972)

In 1974 Bacon met John Edwards & the two became close friends. He became the artist’s final muse & the greatest guardian of Bacon’s legacy. Bacon described him as the only true friend he had ever had. Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards (1980)

Later works have more upbeat colouring & transcendental visions. Study for a Portrait with Bird in Flight (1980), Triptych Panel (1982), Study for Self-Portrait (1982) & Triptych (1983)

By the late 1980s figures dissolve in a kinder way & devastation is more subtle. Painting March (1985), Study from the Human Body (1986), Study from the Male Body (1986) & Triptych (1987)

Bacon’s genius was to evolve his vision whilst continuing to integrate past work. Jet of Water (1988), Seated Figure (1989), Jacques Dupin (1990) & Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988)

Bacon died in Madrid in 1992, aged 82. His friend, John Edwards, donated Bacon’s London studio to
@TheHughLan (1998) & it was expertly conserved & shipped to his birthplace, Dublin. Study of a Bull (1991) was his final painting.

Bacon’s Irish childhood was important to him & he described himself in that way, which is why Edwards gifted the studio & his art to Dublin. Ireland’s theocracy in the 20th C denied him his birthright. Today he is celebrated by his fellow citizens & a symbol of a new Ireland

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