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– Sold OutIrish born British figurative painter, famous for his ground breaking bold and emotionally charged raw images. Bacon’s work finds beauty in the grotesque and strips all humans - from Popes to paupers - down to the mere flesh of their existence. Despite the existentialist nature of his work, Bacon, openly gay, was a charismatic member of the 60’s and 70’s bohemian set in London’s Soho, alongside his contemporaries such as Lucian Freud.
Born in 1909, a descendant of the Elizabethan statesman, Sir Francis Bacon, Bacon’s family consistently moved home, which gave him a sense of displacement and contributed to his shyness. His Army Captain father did not approve of his effeminate manner and cross dressing and after discovering him wearing his mother’s underwear, he was thrown him out of the family home. Bacon survived in London on £3 a week and found rich men in London’s underground gay scene to support him. He became involved in interior design, and after advertising himself as a ‘gentlemen’s companion’ on the front page of The Times found a number of people who became both his lovers and patrons of his art and design.
Bacon did not receive recognition as a painter until 1944 with Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, having been an interior decorator in his 20s and 30s. His work struck a chord with the public consciousness, chronicling the bleakness of the human condition after the horrors of the Second World War. His series of Popes, based on Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X attracted major acclaim. Bacon said he saw images ‘in series’ and much of his work focuses on sequences or variations of the same image or theme. The Furies, Popes, friends (including Henrietta Moraes, model for both Bacon and Freud), animals and screaming heads are some of his typical subjects.
After the suicide of his boyfriend George Dyer in 1971, Bacon’s work became more reflective and focused on the inevitably of death. Dyer and Bacon had met in 1964, Dyer came from a crime riddled East End family and the two had a turbulent relationship, with Dyer being an alcoholic and observing that he thought Bacon’s paintings were “really horrible”, despite the money they brought. Dyer increasingly felt isolated from the high art world that Bacon was moving in during the late 60s, and was found dead on a toilet in their hotel room on the eve of a major exhibition for Bacon in Paris.
Currently Francis Bacon’s work is amongst the most acclaimed and sought after amongst 20th century artists, by 1989 he was the most expensive living artist. Bacon’s Three studies of Lucian Freud’ now holds the world record as the most expensive piece of art sold at auction at 142.4 million dollars having been sold at Christies, New York in 2013.