• 
• 

Francis Bacon – George Dyer – Unframed Lithograph

 From Derriere Le Mirior 1966, published for exhibition of 17 paintings at Gallerie Maeght, published by Maeght Editeur on Standard Lithographic Paper

Edition size believed to be 1500.

25 cm x 34 cm

Condition excellent

Price £850

Francis Bacon – Born: 28th October, 1909 – Dublin, Ireland   Died: 20th April, 1992 – Madrid, Spain

Overview of Francis Bacon's Artistic Creations

Biomorphic Surrealism informed and shaped the style of Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), the work that announced his emergence as a major artist when it was exhibited in the final weeks of World War Two.

This work established the foundation for many of the themes that were to engage his artistic vision for the rest of his career, generating his preoccupation with humanity’s capacity for self-destruction and the ever-present threat of a global nuclear war.

Bacon created his unique style in the late 1940s when he transformed his earlier Surrealistic artistic vision into an approach inspired by the Old Masters, depictions of motion in film and photography, in particular the studies of figures in action produced by the early photographer, Eadweard Muybridge.

During an active artistic career spanning five decades, Bacon produced some of the most iconic images of wounded and traumatised humanity in post-war art, concentrating his energies on portraiture.

The subjects for his portraits were often the habitues of the bars and clubs of London’s Soho neighbourhood. They were always portrayed as violently distorted and depicted not as sociable and charismatic types but as isolated souls, imprisoned and tormented by existential thoughts and concerns.

Although his success and reputation rested on his unique approach to figuration, Bacon’s attitudes to painting was distinctly traditional and Old Masters were an important source of inspiration for him, in particular, Diego Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, which Bacon used as the basis for his own series of ‘screaming popes’.

At a time when many lost faith in painting, Bacon maintained his belief in the importance of the medium, commenting on his own work that they ‘deserve either the National Gallery or the dustbin, with nothing in between’.

 

25 cms x 34 cms