Biography

Born of English parents in Dublin, he had little conventional education, and in 1925 came to London where he started as an interior decorator and designer of furniture. He visited Paris and Berlin, 1927-8, and began to paint, taking up oils in 1928. Self-taught, he was advised by his friend Roy de Maistre. By 1931 he was painting full-time, and had a 'Crucifixion' reproduced in Herbert Read's book 'Art Now'. He lost confidence during the latter 1930's and worked in civil-defence during the war, resuming painting in about 1944.

His 'Three Studies for Figures at the base of a Crucifixion', 1944, created a sensation when shown at the Lefevre Gallery in 1945. Since the mid-1950's his work has been regularly exhibited Internationally (Grand Palais, Paris, 1972; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1975; Tate Gallery, 1985) and acquired by most major museums around the world.

He painted portraits of friends, figure compositions and fantasies including animals, often in intense colour, and usually suggesting involuntary movement. Executed with a bewildering technichal virtuosity, his work tended to become more freely painted, but his essential subject - a pessimistic view of the human condition - did not fundamentally change over the years. He used famous paintings by former artists, stills from films and published photographs as a source of inspiration; the resultant images are dionysian, violent and pathetic, evocative of alienation, horror and suffering.



Bibliography

'Interviews with Francis Bacon', David Sylvester, Thames and Hudson, 1980
'Francis Bacon', Michel Leiris, Thames and Hudson, 1987.