Francis bacon artist biography

In his last years, Bacon retreated from his formerly boisterous social life, focusing on his work and the platonic relationship with Edwards. He died of a heart attack in Madrid at the age of Bacon's unique interpretations and the intensely personal nature of his work make it difficult to visually trace his influence in contemporary art. Nevertheless, his paintings have inspired some of the most standout artists of this generation, including Julian Schnabel and Damien Hirst.

John Edwards, who inherited the estate, played an important role in promoting Bacon's work until his death in He was responsible for the donation of Bacon's studio to the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin, and this was turned into a permanent exhibition and research archive. Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors.

Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. The Art Story. School of London. Important Art. Crucifixion Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion Painting Two Figures Portrait of George Dyer Crouching Early Training. Mature Period. Late Years and Death. Influences and Connections. Useful Resources. Similar Art and Related Pages.

I foresee it and yet I hardly ever carry it out as I foresee it. It transforms itself by the actual paint. I'm greedy for what I hope chance can give me far beyond anything I can calculate logically. And it's partly my greed that has made me what's called live by chance - greed for food, for drink, for being with the people one likes, for the excitement of things happening.

So the same thing applies to one's work. They were trying to trap the fact, because after all, artists are obsessed by life and by certain things that obsess them that they want to record. How can you work for an audience? What do you imagine an audience would want? I have got nobody to excite except myself, so I am always surprised if anyone likes my work sometimes.

I suppose I'm very lucky, of course, to be able to earn my living by something that really absorbs me to try to do, if that is what you call luck. It always remains on one level. It is only really interesting in the beauty of its patterns or its shapes. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him.

The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility. Cages provide areas for Bacon to stage his ferocious meditations on human anguish and savagery, but they also assume more distorted francises bacon artist biography, shifting like the spaces within a bad dream.

Artwork Images. Portrait of Innocent X c. Despite some modest success, Bacon struggled to live from his work. He also grew dissatisfied with his early works, and destroyed most of the paintings from the period. InBacon settled in South Kensington, London, where he remained for the rest of his life. Guggenheim Museum in New York further solidifying his international status.

Years later inat the opening of his large retrospective in Paris, he learned of the suicide of friend and former lover George Dyer. Many subsequent paintings were dedicated to the subject such as Triptych March Throughout the s, Bacon was internationally recognized with a Tate retrospective in and international showings in Moscow and Washington Francis Bacon died of pneumonia on April 28th while on a visit to Madrid.

Francis Bacon 28 October — 28 April was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, grotesque, emotionally charged, raw imagery. He is best known for his depictions of popes, crucifixions and portraits of close friends. His abstracted figures are typically isolated in geometrical cage like spaces, set against flat, nondescript backgrounds.

Bacon said that he saw images "in series", and his work typically focuses on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats. His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on a single motif; beginning with the s Picasso -informed Furies, moving on to the s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the s screaming popes, and the mid-to-late s animals and lone figures, the s portraits of friends, the nihilistic s self-portraits, and the cooler more technical s late works.

Bacon took up painting in his late 30s, having drifted as an interior decorator, bon vivant and gambler. He said that his artistic career was delayed because he spent too long looking for subject matter that could sustain his interest. His breakthrough came with the triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition.

From the mids he mainly produced portraits of friends and drinking companions, either as single or triptych panels. Following the suicide of his lover George Dyer, his art became more sombre, inward-looking and preoccupied with the passage of time and death. Visual Culture in Britain. S2CID National Portrait Gallery, London. Retrieved 26 June The Guardian13 September ISSN Retrieved 15 November The New Yorker.

ISSN X. Archived from the original on 1 March The Independent London25 April Retrieved 29 July Gay TimesSeptember Apollo Magazine1 March Sunday Herald. Archived from the original on 29 January Seabrook Press. Dictionnaire des arts plastiques modernes et contemporains in French. Archived from the original on 26 January Retrieved 7 December Archived from the original on 5 August Comparative and Continental Philosophy.

In Zweite Retrieved 21 March Archived 5 March at the Wayback Machine. Bacon portrait breaks sale record Archived 4 November at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved September Retrieved November The Independent. Archived from the original on 21 October Independent UK. Archived from the original on 22 October Archived 6 March at the Wayback Machine.

Francis Bacon. The Estate of Francis Bacon. Archived from the original on 14 November Retrieved 25 November The Hugh Lane. Dublin City Council. Archived from the original on 1 December Archived from the original on 21 November Artist's Studio Museum Network. Watts Gallery. Archived from the original on 12 August Archived 29 July at the Wayback Machine.

The Guardian17 May Retrieved 18 January Sources and further reading [ edit ]. Archimbaud, Michel. Francis Bacon: The Final Vision. New York: Phaidon Press, Francis Bacon: Important Paintings from the Estate. New York: Tony Shafrazi francis bacon artist biography, Bacon-Picasso: The Life of Images. London: Flammarion, London: Tate Publishing, Francis Bacon's Studio.

London: Merrell Publishers, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Paris: Continuum International Publishing- Mansell, London: Thames and Hudson, London: Vintage, Bacon and Sutherland. Boston: Yale University Press, Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, Francis Bacon Incunabula. Bacon: Portraits and Self-portraits.

Francis Bacon in the s. London: Yale University Press, Thames and Hudson Rump, Gerhard Charles. Francis Bacons Menschenbild. Schmied, Wieland. Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict. London: Prestel Verlag, Bacon: His Life and Violent Times. Interesting facts Francis Bacon decided to start painting after visiting an exhibition by Picasso in He was completely self-taught.

By studying such great masters as Rembrandt, Velasquez, Titian, and Michelangelo, Francis delved into their technique of stroke, composition, and blending shades. The artist's gift, once hidden inside him, was fueled by his work as an interior decorator. Beginning inBacon was painting exclusively and living on money won at the roulette wheel. One of his first paintings was CrucifixionMurderme Collection, Londonwhich caught the attention of the public.

Very few paintings by Francis Bacon from the s have survived: not having a professional education, he was not very happy with most of them, dismissing them as sketches. Bacon destroyed most of his early works, either completely or partially, cutting up the canvas pieces and using them as palettes. His first exhibition was held in By this time, he was already being billed as the leading English artist, the public being enthralled by the unusual figures he depicted in his melancholy paintings.

To describe the work of Francis Bacon in a figurative way, his works are a desperate plea in which the pain of existence can be heard. He sought to convey the whole gamut of feelings that human beings experience: panic, loneliness, misunderstanding, and rules that constrict freedom, including creative ones. Creating his images, the painter sought to convey not the external form of the body, but its innermost feelings, and that distortion made the object more real.