Text by Stephen F. Eisenman, Catherine Howe, Michael Peppiatt, Anna Testar.
The most notorious painter of the 20th century plumbs the animal darkness at the core of the human condition
Despite his harsh habits of self-editing and a relatively late start, the British painter Francis Bacon produced a considerable body of work that continues to electrify. In 1969, Bacon became interested in bullfighting and painted a series of powerful works that evoke anguish and eroticism simultaneously in the contorted bodies of their beastly subjects. "Bullfighting is like boxing," Bacon once said. "A marvelous aperitif to sex.” Twenty-two years later, a single ghostly bull was the subject of his final painting. Ultimately, Bacon was most compelled by the human animal. His paintings frequently eschew the distinction between man and beast; he renders his human subjects as primitive creatures driven by base instincts such as pain and fear, while his animal subjects exude a strangely human sensibility.
This publication concentrates on the role of animals in Bacon’s work, with experts discussing his varied sources of inspiration, such as Surrealist literature and the photography of Eadweard Muybridge.
Francis Bacon (1909–92) began his career in furniture design and interior decoration until 1945, when his career as a painter took off. He enjoyed colossal success in his lifetime, especially as part of a London cohort that included contemporaries Lucian Freud and John Deakin.
"Study of a Baboon," 1953, oil on canvas, 198.3 x 137.3 cm, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
FAD
Mark Westall
In Bacon’s paintings, man is never far from beast. That humankind is fundamentally an animal was a truth that lay at the heart of his imagery. From the biomorphic creatures of his earliest work to the distorted nudes that define the latter part of his career, Bacon remained convinced that, beneath the veneer of civilisation, humans are animals like any other.
Guardian
Mark Brown
Incredibly moving...
Financial Times
Jackie Wullschläger
Bacon’s enduring motif is man alone in a room, fearful and furious. But isolation, in art as in life, is beginning to pall, and the anticipated joy of this show is a new inflection to the modern master of gloom. With his animals, Bacon’s grand guignol menace is varied, inventive, sometimes even touched with comedy.
Washington Post
Sebastian Smee
[Bacon] knew painting could convey things photography could not. It could convey 'the brutality of fact.'
Prospect
Emma Crichton-Miller
The artist's distorted, visceral figures expose humanity’s animal nature.
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FORMAT: Hbk, 9 x 11 in. / 160 pgs / 114 color / 26 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $39.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $55.95 ISBN: 9781912520558 PUBLISHER: Royal Academy of Arts AVAILABLE: 4/20/2021 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Royal Academy of Arts. Text by Stephen F. Eisenman, Catherine Howe, Michael Peppiatt, Anna Testar.
The most notorious painter of the 20th century plumbs the animal darkness at the core of the human condition
Despite his harsh habits of self-editing and a relatively late start, the British painter Francis Bacon produced a considerable body of work that continues to electrify. In 1969, Bacon became interested in bullfighting and painted a series of powerful works that evoke anguish and eroticism simultaneously in the contorted bodies of their beastly subjects. "Bullfighting is like boxing," Bacon once said. "A marvelous aperitif to sex.” Twenty-two years later, a single ghostly bull was the subject of his final painting. Ultimately, Bacon was most compelled by the human animal. His paintings frequently eschew the distinction between man and beast; he renders his human subjects as primitive creatures driven by base instincts such as pain and fear, while his animal subjects exude a strangely human sensibility.
This publication concentrates on the role of animals in Bacon’s work, with experts discussing his varied sources of inspiration, such as Surrealist literature and the photography of Eadweard Muybridge.
Francis Bacon (1909–92) began his career in furniture design and interior decoration until 1945, when his career as a painter took off. He enjoyed colossal success in his lifetime, especially as part of a London cohort that included contemporaries Lucian Freud and John Deakin.
