Francis Bacon

BOOK OF THE DAY

Francis Bacon: A Self-Portrait in Words by Michael Peppiatt review – glimpses of a demon-driven genius

This article is more than 1 year old

Despite the painter’s lack of ‘epistolary fluency’, this collection of his writings – from drunken interviews to begging letters – offers some insight into his working methods and private life

Peter Conrad

Mon 6 May 2024 

Francis Bacon composed his autobiography in paint, not words. His portraiture laid bare the skull beneath the skin, the beast pregnantly housed inside the human form, and all of the figures he painted – copulating men, hybrid monsters, bystanders at a crucifixion, many of them trapped in chrome cages or sadomasochistic cellars – were fractured images of himself. The verbal self-portrait that Michael Peppiatt has assembled could never match that lacerating self-scrutiny; in his correspondence, his scrappy memos for paintings and his repetitive interviews, Bacon hid behind evasive banality or wilful obscurity.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon at the Royal Academy: visceral visions of man and beast

A new retrospective shows how the ruthless painter captured our animal instincts.

By Michael Prodger
2 February 2022

Francis Bacon was born in the first decade of the 20th century and died in the last, and throughout his long life he refused to explain what his paintings were about. That his pictures express something meaningful, universal and profoundly disconcerting is irrefutable, but he shut down explanations with the curt if nonsensical assertion that his work “meant nothing” just as life itself was meaningless: “There’s nothing, see. Nothing. Nada. Just nada.”

Carla Bruni's teenage obsessions: 'Francis Bacon shows our confusion, desire, madness'

 

Carla Bruni

TEENAGE KICKS

Carla Bruni's teenage obsessions: 'Francis Bacon shows our confusion, desire, madness'

As she returns with a new album, the French chanteuse recalls the genius of the Clash and Henry James, plus encounters with Balearic naturists

Interview by Dave Simpson
Fri 16 Oct 2020 10.00 BST

The Clash

As a teenager in Paris all I wanted was travel, freedom and independence. I started working [in modelling] right after my high school exam and didn’t go to university because I wanted to be an adult. I was a bit of a rebel. For me, growing up was about discovering where the boundaries were and breaking them. Like the “terrible twos”, but in adolescence.

Francis Bacon with Barry Joule, left, in Bacon’s studio in 1986. Photograph: © Barry Joule

Secret tapes shed light on Francis Bacon’s bitter battle with Lucian Freud

Conversations between Francis Bacon and a friend reveal details of the long-running feud between two giants of British art

Dalya Alberge
Sunday 28 June 2018

They were titans of 20th-century art, painters whose friendship and rivalry helped create some of the most expensive artworks ever sold. Yet Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud had a falling out, for reasons that neither man fully explained.

Now, recordings of Bacon have emerged that shed light on the estrangement. Talking with a close friend, Bacon poured scorn on Freud, ridiculing one of his paintings in the Charles Saatchi collection and lamenting in 1982 that Freud “doesn’t want to see me”.

The recordings came to light weeks before a joint exhibition of their work in London. Tate Britain’s All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life will reflect the complex friendship between the two men when it opens on 28 February.

Bacon confided: “Certainly the ones [Saatchi] bought of Lucian’s are the worst ones I have ever seen. I saw one ghastly thing of a man standing on a bed and two little heads peeping out from under the bed. It looked ridiculous.”

The recordings were shared with the Observer by Barry Joule, who lived near Bacon’s studio in South Kensington. In 1978, Bacon saw Joule repairing a neighbour’s television aerial and invited him in for champagne. They remained friends until the artist’s death in 1992.

Joule believes Freud’s friendship with Bacon was tainted by Freud’s jealousy: “He cut Francis off completely, much to Francis’s surprise, and never, ever relented.”

There seems to be another element of contention, however. Bacon’s Two Figures (1953), a masterpiece showing two nude men on a bed, was exhibited for the first time in decades last October, when it was loaned to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It had ended up in Freud’s possession and he never allowed it to be borrowed, much to Bacon’s fury.

On one tape, Bacon recalled his German-born London dealer, Erica Brausen, freaking out over Two Figures. He imitated Brausen’s high-pitched Germanic tones: “When I took in that painting … she did say, ‘Darling, don’t bring that sheeet in here!’” He tried to explain that it was inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s 1880s photographs of wrestlers. “She said: ‘I don’t care where it comes from. I don’t vaant de police in ’ere!’”

Bacon then related how the late art critic David Sylvester sold Two Figures to Freud for £80. When Joule expressed astonishment at the low price, Bacon replied: “I had to give 20 of it to … Sylvester as a commission, and I got 60 for it, I think … You see how things are.”

Joule will never forget Bacon’s “sad triple shrug of his shoulders, eyes downcast”.

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 Lucian Freud in 1954. Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images

Joule said: “Freud stashed it away in his house. He later was to put his jealousy knife into Francis as he never, ever allowed this important picture to be borrowed, which mightily [upset] Francis, especially as he wanted it for his 1985 Tate retrospective.”

Bacon once confided to another friend: “When I die, my paintings won’t be worth anything, I’ll be forgotten.” He could not have been more wrong. His 1969 portrait Three Studies of Lucian Freud sold in 2013 for a record £89m.

Freud is admired for portraying the human body with brutal realism. His life-sized nude depiction of his muse Sue Tilley, who was known as “Fat Sue”, sold in 2015 for £35.6m.

Bacon met Freud in the mid-1940s. Although each admired the other’s art in the early days, they eventually stopped speaking.

Joule said that Two Figures was painted in an old garage near Henley-on-Thames rented by Bacon’s then lover, Peter Lacy, just before Christmas 1952. “The exact spot was poignantly pointed out to me by Francis … No doubt he considered it to be a … groundbreaking picture, one that would make a powerful ‘homosexual point’.”

In 1988 Joule was sipping whisky with Bacon, who had just finished a painting, when the phone rang. It was Freud, wanting Bacon to attend a supper for a forthcoming exhibition.

Joule said: “The conversation was short and curt. Only a few words were spoken, with a red-faced Francis slamming the receiver down so hard the wall shook. He angrily returned to his drink, swearing with the foulest language, which was unusual for him. ‘Never lends me his Two Figures painting and now he wants this!’”

In 1991 Joule was with Bacon in a Marylebone cafe when Freud walked in: “I saw Francis stiffen … Lucian did a double-take, but marched right past him. Later I quizzed Francis about what just happened, as I was sure Francis was up for a Freud rapprochement. He just sighed.”

Joule said that Bacon was happy to be recorded, insisting only that Joule wait 12 years after his death before making the conversations public.

The artist also gave Joule works of art, including 1,200 sketches from his studio, whose worth was estimated at £20m in 2004 when Joule donated them to the Tate, one of its most generous gifts. He kept about 120 drawings, which he is exhibiting in Italy at the Villa Fiorentino museum in Sorrento from May to October. The recording of Bacon discussing Freud will be featured.

THE GUARDIAN

The little portrait that packs a mighty punch … Study for Head of Lucian Freud (1967) by Francis Bacon. Photograph: Christie's Images Ltd 2014

The slice of genius brought to you by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud – and Roald Dahl

Study for Head of Lucian Freud, painted by Bacon and owned by Dahl, is expected to fetch millions at Christie's this week. It's worth every penny

Jonathan Jones

Tue 2 July 2014

The really big financial killing at Christie's auction of Postwar and Contemporary Art in London this week will not be made by Tracey Emin's My Bed. Instead it will involve a famous children's author and two remarkable painters, as Francis Bacon's Study for Head of Lucian Freud (1967) also goes under the hammer.

A portrait of the brilliant Freud by his peer – or superior? – Francis Bacon is bound to attract some sensational bids. After all, Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud currently holds the world record as the most expensive painting ever sold at auction after it fetched $142m at Christie's in New York last year. Another Bacon triptych, of his lover George Dyer, sold at Sotheby's this week for £26.7m.

Francis Bacon

But those were triptychs, monumental works in three parts. Bacon's Study for Head of Lucian Freud, painted in 1967, is a much smaller picture. It is expected to sell for up to £12m. Don't be surprised, however, if it goes for a more sensational price.For this is a more exciting painting than Bacon's record-breaking Freud triptych.

Size isn't eveything. In art, a compact work of genius counts for more than sprawl. This little portrait packs a mighty punch.

Study for Head of Lucian Freud is displayed at Christie's in a darkened chapel of its own, isolated from the excitement of Emin's bed. It more than lives up to its quasi-religious setting. This is Bacon at his most radical – not just a distinctive British painter, but the heir of the great European modernists. Freud is unrecognisable under a wild smear of green. Pink and grey lumps of flesh collide with that green in a shocking chaos of a face. What has Bacon done to his friend? It looks more like rivalry, as he literally paints Freud out of the picture.

This painting is almost as hard to read as Picasso's Cubist portrait of Ambroise Vollard. It is a scintillating explosion of artistic energy, squeezed into a small framed rectangle and all the more powerful for that intensity of scale.

What's more, it has a touching story attached. It belonged to the children's author Roald Dahl, who kept it all his life. Dahl and Bacon? Most people probably associate the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory more with his regular illustrator Quentin Blake. Yet he was friends with Bacon and at one time owned seven of his works – this is the last to be sold.

It's tempting to imagine Bacon instead of Blake illustrating Dahl's books. Visions of smeared globs of flesh representing The Twits or The Witches come to mind. But actually, it is not surprising that Roald Dahl appreciated Bacon's darkness. There's plenty of savagery in his books – from the monstrous twits to the vile farmers who try to kill Fantastic Mr Fox. And in his stories for adults, Dahl had a pronounced taste for the gothic, not least in his black comic tale Royal Jelly.

The directors of Christie's may well be putting in an order for Royal Jelly from nearby Fortnum and Mason's after they auction this grisly jewel of a Francis Bacon painting.

THE GUARDIAN

Kitty Hauser / This is Bacon

Francis Bacon

This Is Bacon by Kitty Hauser review – nicely subversive

A punchy introduction to an artist who attracts high scholarship and low gossip

• 
  
• Frances Spalding
• The Guardian, Thursday 18 September 2014 07.30 BST

Francis Bacon, Self portrait (1969). Photograph: National Pictures/Christie's

Even before the biographies of the artist Francis Bacon began to appear, stories about him were rife. Most stemmed from Soho, where he was known to have been instrumental in the success of the Colony Room, the private club run by the wickedly foul-mouthed Muriel Belcher. Later he became a grandee at the French House, soigné in his raincoat, with an open bottle of champagne at his elbow on the bar. From there he often moved to Wheeler's, for lunch or dinner, and there might pronounce, as he swept the crumbs off the white tablecloth, that Mrs Thatcher was now embodying the cause of labour in Britain. His perversity was part of the attraction, as was the terrifying realism that lay behind the tricks and tactics of his art. Few have been so insistent in their belief that humans and animals are both at the mercy of natural compulsions – lust, fear, anxiety, or the urge to violence. Less easy to communicate is the exhilaration that his work undeniably evokes.

The Reason Why Francis Bacon's 'Lucian Freud' Is Worth $142 Million

Francis Bacon's piece on his friend, Lucian Freud,
became the most expensive artwork ever sold in auction

The Reason Why 

Francis Bacon's 'Lucian Freud' 

Is Worth $142 Million

While the world is scratching its head as it tries to digest the $142 million price tag slapped on Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” at Tuesday night’s post-war and contemporary auction in Christie’s New York headquarters, the writing appears to have been on the wall for quite some time.  As the ultra-wealthy become even wealthier, the top-end of the art market, along with real estate and other luxury sectors, have experienced an incredible surge as cash is being channeled into alternative investments.  Add the rarity of the piece, and the performance of the contemporary art market, and you have the recipe for a global record.

After about six minutes of “fierce” bidding, as a spokesperson for Christie’s put it, several bidders had taken the value of Bacon’s triptych from approximately $80 million, where it opened, to a final price of $127 million.  After auctioneer Juri Pylkkanen hammered down the piece, the art world was left with a new auction record, with Bacon’s piece dethroning Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” which sold last year at Sotheby’s for $120 million.

The total value of the auction also marked a new record, grossing $691.6 million and leaving in the dust none other than Christie’s’ last blockbuster evening sale held in May which fetched $495 million.  Three pieces sold for more than $50 million, with 11 pricing in north of $20 million, with a Jeff Koons and a Warhol going for nearly $60 million each.

The figures are astronomical, yet that wasn’t unexpected, according to Thomas Galbraith of online auction house Paddle8.  “This is consistent with what we’ve been seeing the market doing,” Galbraith explains.  “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” won its place as the world’s most expensive artwork given a confluence of factors, from the intrinsic value of the work itself to the state of the market.

“Bacon has a relatively small body of work, he wasn’t nearly as prolific as someone like Picasso,” Katherine Markley, artnet’s lead market analyst, said.  While there were seven pieces by Andy Warhol up for grabs during Tuesday’s auction, “only 10 Bacon lots have come to auction in 2013,” Markley added.

Furthermore, the piece has a sort of intrinsic, yet subjective, value given its importance from an historical perspective.  “The subject matter is very important for the Bacon market given the well documented camaraderie and rivalry he had with Lucian Freud,” Galbraith notes.  Given the rarity of the piece, the auction house will also feed the PR machine, drawing a crowd of clients and observers that creates a feedback loop that reinforces the importance of the auction and the piece, evidenced by the completely packed room at Christie’s on Tuesday.

Another major factor is the wind that has been blowing behind the contemporary market’s sales over the past decade.  From total sales of about $850 million in 2002, the contemporary sector has skyrocketed to about $6 billion last year, artnet’s data shows.  This has happened at the expense of the impressionist and modern market, as less and less top-tier pieces come to market.  Munch’s “Scream” was one of the major works of the modern and impressionist age, allowing it to become the most valuable auction sale last year, despite the rise of the contemporary market.

The final, and possibly most important factor is the rise of the mega-rich.  “Since the recession, the wealthy appear to be becoming even wealthier, while middle class wages are more stagnant,” said Galbraith, who notes this is apparent in the art market where the high-end is experiencing more activity.  “The ultra high net worth and the newly wealthy are looking to get into the art market,” said Markley, who notes contemporary art is accessible and acts well as a status symbol.  If the Forbes 400 is any indication, the wealthy are getting wealthier, with the 400 richest Americans now worth a cumulative $2 trillion, up $300 billion from a year ago and with an average net worth of a record $5 billion, an $800 million increase from a year ago.

The luxury market is firing on all cylinders, as Manhattan real estate brokers can attest to.  This is very clear when one looks at global art markets, particularly at the high end in New York and London, and beyond.  Bacon’s record piece is but one more example of this “new era” that many are calling a bubble.  Yet, as long as the rich continue to get richer, there doesn’t appear to be any indication this trend will reverse itself.

FORBES

Read also

Biografía de Lucian Freud