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Francis Bacon

1909–1992

Sketch [Figure in a Framework] c.1959–61
© Estate of Francis Bacon. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025
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In Tate Britain

Modern and Contemporary British Art

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27 artworks by Francis Bacon
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Biography

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures.

He said that he saw images "in series", and his work, which numbers in the region of 590 extant paintings along with many others he destroyed, typically focused on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats. His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on single motifs; including the 1930s Picasso-influenced bio-morphs and Furies, the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the 1950s "screaming popes," the mid-to-late 1950s animals and lone figures, the early 1960s crucifixions, the mid-to-late 1960s portraits of friends, the 1970s self-portraits, and the cooler, more technical 1980s paintings.

Bacon did not begin to paint until his late twenties, having drifted in the late 1920s and early 1930s 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 1944 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 mid-1960s, he mainly produced portraits of friends and drinking companions, either as single, diptych or triptych panels. Following the suicide of his lover George Dyer in 1971 (memorialised in his Black Triptychs, and a number of posthumous portraits), his art became more sombre, inward-looking and preoccupied with the passage of time and death. The climax of his later period is marked by the masterpieces Study for Self-Portrait (1982) and Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86.

Despite his existentialist and bleak outlook, Bacon was charismatic, articulate and well-read. A bon vivant, he spent his middle age eating, drinking and gambling in London's Soho with like-minded friends including Lucian Freud (although they fell out in the mid-1970s, for reasons neither ever explained), John Deakin, Muriel Belcher, Henrietta Moraes, Daniel Farson, Tom Baker and Jeffrey Bernard. After Dyer's suicide, he largely distanced himself from this circle, and while still socially active and his passion for gambling and drinking continued, he settled into a platonic and somewhat fatherly relationship with his eventual heir, John Edwards.

Since his death, Bacon's reputation has grown steadily, and his work is among the most acclaimed, expensive and sought-after on the art market. In the late 1990s, a number of major works, previously assumed destroyed, including early 1950s pope paintings and 1960s portraits, re-emerged to set record prices at auction.

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School of London

Artworks

Left Right
  • Figure in a Landscape

    Francis Bacon
    1945
  • Dog

    Francis Bacon
    1952
    On display at Tate Britain part of Modern and Contemporary British Art
  • Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

    Francis Bacon
    1944
    On display at Tate Britain part of Modern and Contemporary British Art
  • Study for ‘Portrait of Van Gogh IV’

    Francis Bacon
    1957
  • Reclining Woman

    Francis Bacon
    1961
  • Seated Figure

    Francis Bacon
    1961
  • Study for Portrait on Folding Bed

    Francis Bacon
    1963
  • Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne

    Francis Bacon
    1966
See all 50

Artist as subject

Left Right
  • Francis Bacon

    Lucian Freud
    1952
  • Bacon I

    R.B. Kitaj
    1968–9
    View by appointment
  • Bacon II

    R.B. Kitaj
    1968–9
  • Francis Bacon

    Gary Hume
    1998
  • Triptych August 1972

    Francis Bacon
    1972
    On display at Tate Britain part of Modern and Contemporary British Art
  • Symposium I

    Helen Lessore
    1974–77
  • Mirror

    Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA
    1964–6
    On display at Tate Britain part of Modern and Contemporary British Art

Film and audio

  • TateShots

    Damien Hirst on Francis Bacon

  • Watch

    Film meets Art – Chris Nolan inspired by Francis Bacon

  • Podcast

    Walks of Art: Scottee on Francis Bacon and Soho

  • Playlist

    MixTate: Visionist on Francis Bacon

Features

  • List

    Five Ways to Paint a Body

  • Tate Etc

    Homage to Bacon

Sketches, letters, etc.

  • Letter from Francis Bacon to Erica Brausen, addressed Salisbury, South Rhodesia

    Francis Bacon, recipient: Erica Brausen
    22 February 1951
    View by appointment
  • Letter from Francis Bacon to Erica Brausen, addressed Tangier, Morocco

    Francis Bacon, recipient: Erica Brausen
    date not known
    View by appointment
  • Untitled drawing of three rooms approached by a ladder

    Francis Bacon
    date not known
    View by appointment
  • Incomplete letter with drawn lines

    Francis Bacon
    date not known
    View by appointment
See all 24

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