Francis Bacon Biography

Master British painter and printmaker Francis Bacon is probably the most famous and controversial of the British contemporary artists. He is known for his powerful, unsettling, and often grotesque, nightmarish imagery.

Born in Dublin, he fled to London at the age of 16 when he was thrown out by his father. He subsequently lived in Berlin and Paris, incorporating himself into the hedonistic underworld of the era, in his words, “Between the gutter and the Ritz.” Although he never attended art school, he began to paint and draw, seriously influenced by the art of Picasso. Disappointed by the hostile reception his art receives, he destroyed nearly everything he created before 1944.

In 1945 he exhibited his first successful painting, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. The work instantly establishes him as a controversial figure, which is further fuelled by his paintings derived from the themes of Velasquez, turning his Pope Innocent X into a nightmarish image.

In the later decades of the century, Bacon’s work became increasingly more respected and found its way into many of the major collections in the world. His work exerts an enduring fascination for its dislocation of the figure, its brilliant coloration, its unique combination of the intimate and the monumental. He lived a dramatic life, often as engaging and extreme as his works. He died in Madrid in 1992.

In the words of the Artist: ‘ (I try) to paint like Velasquez but with the texture of a hippopotamus skin. ‘ His artworks are characteristically painted with strong, jumbled brushwork normally depicting solitary or sad figures.

In 1985, Alan Bowness, the director of the Tate Gallery in London wrote: ‘ Bacon is surely the greatest living painter; no artist in our century has presented the human predicament with such insight and feeling. ´

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2005
Francis Bacon - Die Portraits, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Celebración del arte - Medio siglo de la Fundación Juan March, Fundación Juan March, Madrid
Summer Exhibition 2005, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Arte Del Siglo XX - Colección Internacional Del Museo Rufino Tamayo, México , Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires
51st International Exhibition: Always a Little Further, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (Scotland)
Group Show, Gagosian Gallery - New York, New York, NY
Faces in the Crowd - Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today, MUSEO D`ARTE CONTEMPORANEA CASTELLO DI RIVOLI, Turin
The Triton Collection, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Den Haag
Bacon - Picasso La vie des Images, Musée National Picasso, Paris
Gegenwelten. Das 20. Jahrhundert in der Neuen Nationalgalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Francis Bacon, Ardou, Kazandjian, Galerie Jeanne, Munich

2004
Beauty and the beasts. On becoming anima, MART-Museo dArte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto
‘De wereld deugt, wijzelf helaas wat minder’, De Appel, Amsterdam
What´s modern?, Gagosian Gallery - New York, New York, NY
Modern Means: Continuity and Change in Art from 1880 to the Present, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Africa - Beauty and Disaste,r Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Francis Bacon - Le Sacré et le Profane, Musée Maillol - Fondation Dina Vierny, Paris
Marlborough Re-opening Exhibition, Marlborough Galerie GmbH, Zurich
Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art, Foundation Beyeler, Riehen
About Corporeality in Editions - Artist Books, Prints, Photography, Galerie Lelong, Zurich

2003
Francis Bacon, IVAM - Institut Valencià dArt Modern, Valencia
Bilbao a Genova - La cultura cambia le città, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa
The Human Condition: The Figure in British Art 1950-2002, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, Birmingham (England)
Bacon - Baselitz - Carrazai, Galerie Jeanne, Munich
The Stage of Drawing: Gesture & Act - Selected from the Tate Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Sidney, Sydney, NSW
20th Century British Art 2003, Scolar Fine Art, London (England)
Dali - Bacon - Baselitz - Miro, Galerie Jeanne, Munich
The Painting never dries..., Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo
Representing the World, Frissiras Museum, Athens
Moderna Museet c/o Malmö Konsthall, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö
FRANCIS BACON: CAGED - UNCAGED, Museu Serralves. Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto
Debüt 2003, Galerie Jeanne, Munich

2002
El lenguaje del cuerpo, Galería Elvira González, Madrid
Impressions, Galerie Beyeler, Basel
LA PART DE LAUTRE, Carré d´art - Musée d´art contemporain de Nîmes, Nîmes
Themes and Variations. Post-war Art from the Guggenheim Collections., Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

2001
Graphik der Klassischen Moderne, Galerie Jeanne, Munich
Naked since 1950, L & M Arts, New York, NY
Pintura al desnudo, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao
Classics, Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Pop Art & Co - Uniques, Graphics and Multiples, Galerie Burkhard Eikelmann • Düsseldorf, Duesseldorf
Klassische Moderne des 20. Jahrhunderts, Galerie Jeanne, Munich
The Global Guggenheim - Selections from the Extended Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Echoes of the Scream, ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen

2000
MAN – Body in Art from 1950-2000, ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen
Echoes, Irish Museum of Modern Art - IMMA, Dublin
Der anagrammatische Körper, ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe
The Barry Joule Archive: Works on Paper attributed to Francis Bacon, Irish Museum of Modern Art - IMMA, Dublin
Francis Bacon, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Kunstbau, Munich
Die verletzte Diva - Hysterie, Körper, Technik in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunde, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck

SELECTED MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS

- Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
- National Gallery of Australia
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
- Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- Museum of London, England
- Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid
- Tate Gallery, London
- Musee National d’Art Modern, Paris

SELECTED ARTICLES:

- Life works
The Sunday Times , May 28, 2000

- When Francis met Pablo
The Irish Times, March 25, 2000

- The man who put the pain into painting
The Independent [U.K.], October 2, 1998

Books on Francis Bacon

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