PORTRAIT of ISABEL RAWSTHORNE, 1966 Oil on Canvas, 81 X 69 Cm

FRANCIS BACON DVD & VIDEO RESOURCES

1. BACONS ARENA

Format DVD Genre Special Interest / Documentary Running 95 mins Time Aspect TBC Ratio Languages English (Dolby Digital 2.0) Rating M Available 20-05-2009 Label Madman Entertainment Sourced Australia

SYNOPSIS: Francis Bacon (1909-1992) is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. This special edition DVD has been created to mark the centenary of his birth (2009) and is produced in association with the Estate of Francis Bacon. The film was nominated for an international Emmy, and is widely acclaimed as the definitive biographical documentary on Francis Bacon.

Special Features: Interview with director Adam Low Reece Mews: A documentary about the dismantling and moving of Bacon's studio from London to Dublin In Camera: A short film about Francis Bacon and photography Interview: David Sylvester with Fracis Bacon Artwork Gallery: A selection of Bacon's paintings filmed on location at the Tate Gallery in London, The Musee Maillol in Paris and the Galerie Beyler in Basel.

AVAILABLE @: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2fDCnYVtc&feature=plcp (9 part video)

JB HI FI $23.99 (Special Order)

REVIEWS:

Greg Hassall, reviewer March 1, 2008 http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv-reviews/bacons-arena/2008/02/29/1204226967654.html

Born in Ireland to British parents, Francis Bacon was a hard-drinking homosexual with a taste for rough sex who produced some of the 20th century's most striking paintings. He's the ideal subject for a documentary and this doesn't disappoint. It is beautifully constructed, with a haunting score by Brian Eno, and deserved its nomination for an International Emmy in 2005. Director Adam Low takes a largely chronological approach to Bacon's life and career, combining movie clips, interviews with family and friends, archival footage of Bacon and, of course, plenty of shots of his work. Throughout, there is a recurring motif of bullfighting, presumably to signify the violence and carnality of Bacon's work as well as his prodigious sexual appetite and preference for dangerous men.

In many of the interviews, Bacon is argumentative and drunk but he is always charismatic. This documentary doesn't shy away from his faults but ultimately paints a portrait of a hard-living man who was comfortable with his lifestyle and took excess and success in his stride.

CLASSROOM USE:

This film provides an in-depth insight into Bacon’s artists practice, but also provides students with an understanding of the context in which Bacon’s works were created. The film delves into many aspects of Bacon’s world including his cultural upbringing and experiences, his family and personal relationships as well as the major events that were happening in the world around him that impacted on his artmaking. A great way to start a unit of work on Bacon or simply to introduce the artist to students before heading off to the exhibition. The film is a comprehensive resource to explore questions and discussions on the artists practice and the conceptual framework.

The only reservation about the film would be that it is 90 minutes in length, moving quite slowly in chronological order and the narration lacks the enthusiasm required for our target audience, which in turn could make it difficult to keep students (particularly juniors) engaged if viewed in full.

2. FRANCIS BACON

 Actors: Francis Bacon, Melvyn Bragg  Directors: David Hinton  Format: Color, NTSC  Language: English  Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1  Number of discs: 1  Rated: NR (Not Rated)  Studio: Image Entertainment  DVD Release Date: March 6, 2001  Run Time: 55 minutes  Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars

SYNOPSIS:

Since his death in 1992, Arena is the only broadcaster to be granted exclusive permission by the Estate of Francis Bacon to make a film about his life. Bacon's paintings are some of the most vivid, haunting and ferocious in art history, and his life was as outrageous as his art. The film is saturated with Bacon's forceful presence, his imperious and seductive voice - a testament to the unparalleled range and originality of Bacon's insights into his own work.

Even more appreciated abroad than in Britain, Bacon is revealed as a global phenomenon. The documentary extends far beyond the Soho caricature of the Bacon legend, featuring visits to Paris, Madrid, Tangier, Ireland and New York. Contributors include Bacon's sister Ianthe and those closest to him, and the programme features original music by Brian Eno.

AVAILABLE @:

http://www.youtube.com/user/theartroom1/videos?query=bacon

REVIEWS: www.amazon.com/Francis-Bacon July 26, 2009 Brought to you by the BBC what you get is a 50 minute look at the enigmatic painter, good interviewing job by Melvyn Bragg, view some of Bacon's paintings, and go along with Bragg and Bacon to the messy studio and his favourite hangouts. They say he could be very dark, his moods shifting unpredictably, and that the closer you got the more inevitable the darkness. But Bacon could also be upbeat and a real pleasure and that side is present in the film. He candidly answers questions about various aspects of his work and life, offers views on other painters (loves Van Gogh, loathes abstract expressionism), but doesn't analyse his paintings. What's there is there. Nothing to be said of it. I myself can understand how his paintings of meat and twisted bodies and screaming popes could shock people in the 1940s because these images are still unsettling. Good art lasts.

CLASSROOM USE:

This film will provide the class with an understanding of Bacon’s cultural upbringing and life before becoming an artist within the first five minutes, although brief in comparison to “Bacon’s Arena” it moves at a much faster pace and should engage the target audience with a much more direct and personal viewpoint presented via in depth interviews with the artist himself. The film then travels into analysing Bacon’s artworks, the artist offers very subjective and truthful insights into his concepts, subjects, intentions and material practice. We also see Bacon’s sometimes brutal opinion on the work of other artists. We are later taken into Bacon’s studio and home, again with the artist providing an in depth discussion of his process, practice and inspiration. This documentary paints a very clear picture of Bacon’s artmaking practice and could be used to facilitate discussion on the artist’s studio, process, subjects, concepts, influences, material practice and techniques, as well as the interrelationships between the artist, his work, world and the audience.

3. FRANCIS BACON A TERRIBLE BEAUTY

Francis Bacon A Terrible Beauty Centenary Exhibition 28th October 2009 - 7th March 2010 Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane Promotional Film by Feenish Productions for more information go to: http://www.hughlane.ie

Run time: 8.08

SYNOPSIS:

This short clip was created as a promotional film for the Bacon Centenary Exhibition at The Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery in 2009. A Terrible Beauty provides a brief insight into Bacon’s world, discussing and showing footage of the artist’s chaotic studio and his various sources of inspiration. We are offered a glimpse into the artist’s practice, in particular his way of thinking and creating figurative art. The relocation and conservation of Bacon’s studio to the Dublin City Gallery is also explored in this short film.

AVAILABLE @: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM1eeKHNrE4&feature=related

CLASSROOM USE:

This short clip could be used as the basis for an artmaking activity in the classroom accompanied by a series of images of Bacon’s figurative works. The focus on this practical task would be Bacon’s use of photographic images as a source of inspiration for his artmaking as explored in the film. In a practical activity students would discover the way the artist folded, tore and dissected photographic portraits as a starting point for creating his twisted, deformed and distorted figurative paintings in turn creating their own Bacon inspired artworks. Students would begin with photographic style portraits (from newspaper, magazines or photocopies) and dissect and rearrange them to make new disfigured but recognisable forms. They could then use these images as the starting point for a figurative painting, or collage and paint over the images themselves. Throughout this artmaking activity, references and links could be paralleled to the artist’s process and techniques as explored through the short film and exemplified in his artworks.

Books on Francis Bacon Interviews with Francis Bacon (Paperback) By (author) David Sylvester, 1988

$20.45

It has also been seen as the most revealing portrait that exists of one of the most singular artistic personalities of our time. Bacon's obsessive thinking about how to remake the human form in pain finds unique expression in his encounters with the distinguished art writer David Sylvester over a period of twenty-five years. In these masterfully and creatively reconstructed interviews, Sylvester has provided unparalleled access to the thought, work, and life of one of the creative geniuses of our century.

Book depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Interviews-with- Francis-Bacon-David-Sylvester/9780500274750 Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (Continuum Impacts) (Paperback) By (author) Gilles Deleuze, 2006

$21.38

Francis Bacon is Deleuze's long-awaited work on Bacon, widely regarded as the one of the most radical painters of the twentieth century. The book presents a deep engagement with Bacon's work and the nature of art. Deleuze analyses the distinctive innovations that came to mark Bacon's style while introducing a number of his own famous concepts.

Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Francis-Bacon- Gilles-Deleuze/9780826479303 Francis Bacon (Hardback) Edited by Matthew Gale, Edited by Chris Stephens, 2009

$21.90

Francis Bacon's style was so personal and distinctive that his influence lay more in the intensity of his commitment to art itself than in any direct stylistic legacy. The British artist developed a way of portraying the human body that was unique in the history of painting--usually in isolation, at moments of extreme tension or even pain, distorted like figures from a fantastical nightmare. He remains a towering example to those dedicated to the depiction of the human figure. In addition to 250 full-color plates, this publication also reveals Bacon's low-art inspirations, including magazine tear sheets, photographs, and imagery from films.

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=francis+bacon

Francis Bacon (World of Art) (Paperback) By (author) John Russell, 1993

$9.62

Based on conversations with Bacon that extended over several years, John Russell's original study revealed much about the man and the artist. On Bacon's death in 1992, the unique vision and accomplishment of one of the greatest artists of the century could be appreciated in their totality. In a new final chapter, Russell does just that, as well as discussing Bacon's late work, Bacon's intentions and his achievements, both frequently misunderstood, are here set in perspective.

Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Francis-Bacon- John-Russell/9780500202715 Francis Bacon: The Violence of the Real (Hardback) By (author) Peter Bürger, By (author) Maria Müller, Edited by Armin Zweite, 2006

$46.64

Francis Bacon was renowned for his dramatic depictions of the human form; he portrayed the ordeal of the vulnerable, defencelessly exposed body like no other artist of his generation. This book presents about sixty of Bacons disturbing yet captivating studies of the human figure, encompassing works from the late 1940s until his death.

Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Francis-Bacon- Peter-Brger/9780500093351 Francis Bacon in the 1950s (Paperback), By (author) Michael Peppiatt , 2009

$22.45

Reveals essential keys to understand Francis Bacon's mysterious and subversive art. This book analyses the significant developments in his art.

Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Francis-Bacon-1950s- Michael-Peppiatt/9780300151213

Francis Bacon by Wieland Schmied, 2006

$15.64

In this comprehensive study of one of the twentieth century's most passionately committed artists, Wieland Schmied offers a thoughtful overview of Bacon's life, analyses his paintings, and examines the creative processes they embody. He explores in depth Bacon's subtle use of space, the development of his imagery, idiosyncratic painting technique, and place in the pantheon of twentieth- century artists.

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Francis-Bacon-Weiland- Schmied/dp/3791334727/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=13 46571698&sr=8-4&keywords=francis+bacon

Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma [Paperback] Michael Peppiatt (Author), 2009

$6.78

In his revised and updated edition of an already brilliant biography, Michael Peppiatt has drawn on fresh material that has become available in the sixteen years since the artist’s death. Most important, he includes confidential material given to him by Bacon but omitted from the first edition. Francis Bacon derives from the hundreds of occasions Bacon and Peppiatt sat conversing, often late into the night, over many years, and particularly when Bacon was working in Paris. We are also given insight into Bacon’s intimate relationships, his artistic convictions and views on life, as well as his often acerbic comments on his contemporaries.

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Francis-Bacon-Anatomy- Michael- Peppiatt/dp/B007K4ILFA/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1 346571698&sr=8-6&keywords=francis+bacon

Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self And the Loss of Self Author: Ernst Van Alphen, 2004

$28.95

In this provocative and highly original interpretation of Bacon's art, the author offers close readings of significant works, discussing them in relationship to theories of schizophrenia, masculinity and contemporary literature, as well as issues of representation and visuality. By looking at the paintings in intricate detail and exploring their connections within cultural theory, van Alphen brings Bacon into the context of the contemporary critical debate.

Booktopia http://www.booktopia.com.au/francis-bacon-and-the- loss-of-self/prod9780948462344.html

Francis Bacon: Incunabula (Hardback) By (author) Martin Harrison, By (author) Rebecca Daniels

$48.99

In 1949 Francis Bacon found his subject--the human body-- and from then on it remained his principal theme. But he did not paint from life. Instead he appropriated images from the mass media that he manipulated into his "studies." This book presents over 200 of these documents, about which Bacon was secretive but which, it emerges, were integral to his creative process. Culled from thousands of pieces of original material found in his studio, including newspapers, magazines, books, and photographs, these items have each been exhaustively and minutely researched, providing for the first time comprehensive details of the artist's sources.

Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Francis-Bacon- Incunabula-Martin-Harrison/9780500093443?b=-3&t=- 20#Fulldescription-20

Journal Articles on Francis Bacon The following journal articles on Francis Bacon are available on Questia http://www.questia.com/

Annual membership: $96.77

Monthly membership: $19.95

Skin Aesthetics as Incarnation: Gilles Deleuze's Diagram of Francis Bacon by Gail, Jakub Zdebik Jarislowsky, Stephen A.

Publication: English Studies in Canada, Vol. 34, No. 1, March 2008

Francis Bacon by Clark, Adrian

Publication: British Art Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3, Spring 2009

Reflections on the Scream: Francis Bacon, Lessing, and the Aesthetics of the Beautiful and the Sublime by White, Richard

Publication: Philosophy Today, Vol. 47, No. 1, Spring 2003 Francis Bacon by Nochlin, Linda

Publication: Artforum International, Vol. 35, No. 2, October 1996

A Dark Prophet: The Impact of Francis Bacon's Disturbing Paintings Has Not Diminished One Jot by Hubbard, Sue

Publication: New Statesman (1996), Vol. 137, No. 4915, September 22, 2008

Francis Bacon by Danto, Arthur Coleman

Publication: The Nation, Vol. 251, No. 4, July 30, 1990

Newspaper and magazine articles on Francis Bacon Unnerving Art by Michael Kimmelman

Publication: New York Times Magazine, August 20, 1989

Available in full text: http://www.francis-bacon.com/news/?c=Press

The Master of the Macabre, Francis Bacon by Michael Kimmelman

Publication: The New York Times, The Arts. Thursday, October 26, 1989

Available in full text: http://www.francis-bacon.com/news/the-master-of-the-macabre-francis-bacon/?c=Press Francis Bacon: behind the myth by Rebecca Daniels

Publication: The Telegraph, 16th August 2008

Available in full text: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3558531/Francis-Bacon-behind-the-myth.html Art Review | Francis Bacon If Paintings Had Voices, Francis Bacon’s Would Shriek by Roberta Smith Publication: The New York Times, 21st May, 2009

Available in full text: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/arts/design/22baco.html?pagewanted=all Francis Bacon Art Review by John Molyneux Publication: Socialist Review, October, 2008

Available in full text: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10573

Francis Bacon at London’s Tate Gallery A photo essay by Richard Lacayo

Publication: Time, 2009

Photo essay Available http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1846249,00.html Francis Bacon at Tate Britain: Bacon's merciless slices of life by Richard Dorment

Publication: The Telegraph, 11th September, 2008

Available in full text: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3560223/Francis-Bacon-at-Tate-Britain-Bacons- merciless-slices-of-life.html Reviews roundup: Francis Bacon at Tate Britain by Oginia O’Del

Publication: The Guardian, 10th September, 2008

Available in full text: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/10/bacon.tate.reviews Painted screams by Adrian Searle

Publication: The Guardian, 9th September, 2008

Available in full text: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/09/bacon.art

The Tate Brings Home the Bacon

Francis Bacon, Tate Britain, 11th September 2008- 4th January 2009

Catalogue Francis Bacon (Hardback) Edited by Matthew Gale, Edited by Chris Stephens, 2009

On a cold day in early January I escape the bitter wind off the Thames and am welcomed into the warm expanses of the Tate Britain. I am here, of course, to see the much acclaimed Francis Bacon, the first retrospective of the artist’s work at the Tate since 1985. Unfortunately, I have come on the last Saturday of the exhibition and as I vie for a place in the ticket line, with a throng of about ten thousand others, I begin to wonder if I will even get in to see the show today. But luckily the line moves quickly and within an hour I am being swept into the first room with a mixed ensemble of art enthusiasts, tourists and screaming children. Curator Nicholas Serrota has arranged the exhibition in broad chronological order into eight themed rooms which chart the artist’s development in painting from his first existential ponderings in the 1940’s through to his explicitly violent visions of the 1960’s and finally to his more sensuous abstract imagery of the late 80’s.

As I shuffle into the first room I can hardly move sideways without a pram snapping at my heels and I have to strain my neck to even get a glimpse of one of the artworks. But as I let the crowds slowly dissolve I am left staring into the monstrously distorted forms of the triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944. The livid orange, highly saturated canvases shriek and howl in pain like animals caught in a trap. The triptych dismantles traditional Christian depictions of saints and instead exposes the torture and brutality of the ritual of sacrifice. As an atheist, Bacon saw the paradox in his consistent return to the Christian motif of crucifixion, however he believed these paintings merely illustrated man’s basest behaviours. The ravaged, tormented figures in Three Studies reflect Bacon’s philosophy that man was savage and that there was no salvation.

As I wind my way through the massive white rooms of the exhibition several works imprint on my memory and send a shiver down my spine. The dark gaping mouth of Pope Innocent X in Head VI, 1949 sucks the audience into the oblivion of the claustrophobic cage only to spit you back up in a storm of electric grey shards. With these paintings Bacon developed a technique he referred to as ‘shuttering’ where he would use dry-brushed vertical lines of paint to merge the foreground and background in an attempt to “to lift the image outside of its natural environment”(Francis Bacon, Tate online). Pope Innocent’s muted scream certainly resounded through the corridors of the Tate and no doubt haunts viewers years later.

With countless exhibitions on Bacon, Nicholas Serrota’s curatorship of the Tate show stands out as distinctive and original. Masterfully reconstructing Bacon’s practice from a vast array of archives, photographs and documents Serrota is able to provide more than just an expressionist narrative of the artist’s life through his paintings. Instead, he offers the audience a unique insight into Bacon’s studio practice and reveals his influences from low-art forms such as magazines, newspaper articles and film imagery. Two whole rooms in the exhibition have been dedicated to archiving and unpacking these sources and provide the audience with a much richer, holistic portrait of the artist.

The accompanying catalogue for the exhibition Francis Bacon edited by Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens is a must-have guide to the retrospective. The co-authors Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens are leading experts on international and British art and are joined by a team of international critics to deconstruct and re-assess Bacon’s role in the digital age of the 21st century. With a forward by curator Nicholas Serrota, the catalogue chronicles Bacon’s career through a series of essays. Charting the development of Bacon’s distinctive style over five decades, it successfully unpacks Bacon’s artmaking practice documenting his influences, intentions, techniques and stylistic development. It also reveals Bacon’s inspiration from low-art forms and his intentional use of magazine cut outs, photocopies and photographic imagery from films. With over 250 coloured plates, this comprehensive guide to Francis Bacon is an essential companion for any Bacon inspired teaching program.

11 SEPTEMBER 2008 – 4 JANUARY 2009 TATE BRITAIN TEACHER AND STUDENT NOTES BY LINDA BOLTON INTRODUCTION Francis Bacon (1909–92) was one of the most important painters of the twentieth century and one of the very few British artists with a strong international reputation. He was a maverick who rejected the dominant practice of the time, abstraction, in favour of a distinctive and disturbing realism. This major exhibition displays Bacon’s work from his first masterpiece to works made shortly before his death. He was born in 1909 in Dublin to Anglo-Irish parents; his father was a racehorse trainer and his mother a steel and coal heiress. Bacon was a sickly child, he suffered from asthma and was allergic to the dogs and horses kept by his father. His lively and gregarious mother showed little interest in her son’s early sketches. Bacon’s closest childhood confidante was the family nursemaid, Jessie Lightfoot. They developed an intense bond and she lived with him at intervals long into Bacon’s adulthood, remaining one of his closest companions throughout his life. It was a peripatetic childhood as his family moved frequently between England and Ireland. The frequent upheavals he experienced as a result of this were to induce in Bacon a sense of displacement which is often referenced in his work. Bacon loved dressing up. As a shy child, his effeminate manner upset his father, who apparently had Bacon horsewhipped by their Irish groom, and banished him from the family home after finding his son dressed in his mother’s underwear, admiring himself in front of a mirror. Bacon had only a few months of formal education and did not become an artist through art school or apprenticeship; he ran away from school to drift through the late 1920s and early 1930s in London, Berlin and Paris, living off his allowance and occasional jobs, and dodging the rent. He worked as an interior decorator, coming to painting as a self-taught artist by the early 1930s. When in London, he lived in the epicentre of the bohemian scene; he was a regular at Muriel Belcher’s Colony Club in Soho and his hedonistic life was the subject of the 1998 film Love is the Devil. From the mid 1940s his work met with critical success, and his paintings sold for large sums and continue to do so today. The triptych, Three Studies for Self- Portrait 1976, was bought for $86.3 million in 2008, by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Teacher and student notes. Downloadable full colour A4 images with introductory information, discussion points, links and activities for use in the gallery or classroom. Suitable for teachers of key stage 3–5 and older students. By Linda Bolton

2 VISITING THE EXHIBITION Exhibition tickets for school groups of more than ten students are available in advance only at a cost of £4 per student and teacher (we ask for payment to be received two weeks before the visit). As tickets are limited it is essential to book well in advance. To make a booking, please call the Education Bookings line on 020 7887 8888. To avoid overcrowding in the exhibition, all groups with more than thirty students will be split and entry to the exhibition will be staggered at one-hour intervals. You are welcome to use the Schools Area to have lunch or to use locker spaces; please book these at the same time as your exhibition tickets (there are a limited number of locker spaces and lunch slots available). As all exhibitions at Tate Britain can get busy you cannot lecture in the exhibition rooms, but you can discuss works in a conversational manner in groups of no more than six students at a time. If possible, please brief your group before they enter the exhibition, and if you have a large group we recommend that you divide them into smaller groups and perhaps follow the suggestions in this pack. ABOUT THE TEACHER AND STUDENT NOTES This short pack is intended as an introduction to the exhibition and some of its themes and covers four works in depth, taking in the range of the show. It offers ideas and starting points for visiting teachers to use with all age groups, as well as for A-level and GCSE students to use on their own. Some of the activities or discussion points can be used as preparation for the visit, some are for use in the exhibition itself, and others are more suited to class work after your visit. The works discussed are reproduced here so that you can print them out and use them as a resource in the classroom. The notes aim to give a few jumping-off points to explore not only the featured works but the exhibition as a whole. OTHER RESOURCES In the exhibition there is an information leaﬂet and an audioguide which gives further information about the works on display. The exhibition catalogue is available in the Tate shop, which also has a range of books, journals, postcards and other related materials. WEBSITES Tate Online www.tate.org.uk Bacon Exhibition www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/francisbacon Bacon in the Tate Colleciton www.tate.org.uk/collection and search by ‘Artist Name’ Bacon Resources www.tate.org.uk/learning/schools and search ‘By Artist’ Tate Schools and Teachers www.tate.org.uk/schoolsandteachers Tate Shop www.tate.org.uk/shop You can also view full length television and radio programmes about the artist via the BBC website www.bbc.co.uk/archive/bacon

4 HEAD VI, 1949 Oil on canvas. 93.2 cm x 76.5 cm. Arts Council

This powerful painting was inspired by a famous portrait by the renowned seventeenth-century Spanish artist, Diego Velázquez. Velázquez’s painting shows Pope Innocent X sitting in state on the papal throne. In the Bacon image here, the Pope’s mouth is open in what looks like a scream. The painting is dominated by vertical brushstrokes that make it appear as if the Pope’s head is being sucked upwards into a vacuum beyond the painting or even as if he is on fire. It is a frightening image which has been interpreted in a number of different ways. Some think that Bacon is showing the Pope experiencing a moment of paralysing torment as he loses his faith in God. Others have interpreted this work as an “existentialist cry” – they think that the painting portrays a moment of realisation that life has no meaning. Bacon has made two major changes to the original Velázquez painting – one is to place the Pope within what looks like a large glass box. This makes it seem as if he is imprisoned or on display like an object in a museum. Bacon used the image of the glass cage or frame in a number of his paintings. He said that his use of this image was ‘an attempt to lift the image outside of its natural environment’. The other change is to show the figure with his mouth open as if in a cry of pain. Again, this is something Bacon does in a number of his paintings. Bacon discussed his interest in the image of a mouth open as though crying in a 1966 interview with David Sylvester. “Another thing that made me think about the human cry was a book I bought when I was very young from a bookshop in Paris, a second-hand book with beautiful, hand-coloured plates of the diseases of the mouth, beautiful plates of the mouth open and of the examination of the inside of the mouth; and they fascinated me, and I was obsessed by them. And then I saw – or perhaps I even knew by then – the Potemkin film and I attempted to use the Potemkin still as a basis on which I could also use these marvellous illustrations of the human mouth. It never worked out though.” The Potemkin film Bacon mentions was Eisenstein’s iconic The Battleship Potemkin (1925). The image from that film of a nanny’s mouth open in a scream as she watches a baby’s pram roll down the Odessa steps was to become a recurrent image in Bacon’s subsequent work. While Bacon often talked about the influence of particular films, book plates or photographs which find their way into his art, he resisted explaining his work. To explain it would demystify it. FOR DISCUSSION t Why do you think people see Bacon as registering the twentieth century’s lack of faith, and existential angst in this (and other) works? t Which artists, writers and musicians would you say are picking up on the ‘zeitgeist’ or mood of today? t What does the use of the ‘glass frame’ in this and several of Bacon’s other paintings suggest to you? ACTIVITIES t Bacon liked to transcribe the work of other artists, such as Velázquez and van Gogh, to reinvent the tradition. Take a recognised image by an Old Master and make your own transcription, so that the original image is recognizable but its mood is altered. t Bacon found himself out of cash and unable to buy canvases so he turned around those he had and painted on the ‘wrong’ side. Finding he enjoyed the effect of working on the unprimed canvas, from then on he continued to work like this. Peter Doig did something similar when he was short of money for canvas, and used mail sacks. Monet used the wrong end of a brush to create the effect of branches by ‘scratching’ into the wet paint and Gary Hume used enamel paint on large metal hospital doors which were readily available. Experiment with unorthodox media as the basis for a piece of work and see what effect this has on the form and meaning.

6 PORTRAIT OF ISABEL RAWSTHORNE, 1966 Oil on canvas, 81 x 69 cm. Tate

Isabel Rawsthorne (1912–1992) was a strikingly beautiful model and muse to several great twentieth-century artists including, Giacometti, Derain, Epstein and Picasso. She had a profound and lasting effect on the sculptor Giacometti with whom she lived briefly in Paris and was described by Giacometti’s biographer, James Lord, as “tall, lithe, superbly proportioned” and “moved with the agility of a feline predator. Something exotic, suggesting obscure origins, was visible in her full mouth, high cheek-bones, and heavy-lidded, slanting eyes, from which shone forth a gaze of exceptional, though remote, intensity.” She made an extraordinary impression on people. The artist Edouardo Paolozzi remembers her entering a restaurant in the 1940s and transfixing the diners with her beauty. Hers was one of the faces Bacon was to paint repeatedly. Bacon was reported in the magazine Paris Match as saying of her “You know, I also made love to Isabel Rawsthorne, a very beautiful woman who was Derain’s model and Georges Bataille’s girlfriend.” While we can’t be certain of the truth of this she was certainly his friend. Born in London but brought up in Liverpool where she trained as an artist, she was married three times; to a journalist, and to the composer Constant Lambert and later, to another composer, Lambert’s drinking companion, Alan Rawsthorne. Isabel Rawsthorne lived in Paris and London and was a great bohemian character. A fine painter and set designer, she also swore like a trooper and could apparently match her hard-drinking husbands glass for glass. Bacon painted landscapes, figure studies and portraits, distorting the readability of the image by a technique of smearing the wet paint. In the case of the portrait, this smearing creates the effect of facial damage. Bacon had seen a book of faces chronically damaged by war wounds, and many of his faces look as though they have been similarly mutilated. Bacon described himself as a painter of flesh, saying he had been powerfully affected by Poussin’s painting Massacre of the Innocents. During the 1960s Bacon focused increasingly on portraits, especially those of his close friends. The portraits are deliberately not a ‘true’ likeness. Some have seen these portraits as a way to rework a traditional genre, to reinvent the portrait in a post-photographic age and to use the human face to say something about the human condition. FOR DISCUSSION t Do you feel Bacon has painted Isabel Rawsthorne as the beautiful woman everyone describes? If art is not about being beautiful, what is it about? t Although this is a portrait of a real person, a friend, it is more than that. Discuss what aspects of the human face or condition are brought to mind looking at this. t Bacon often worked from photographs. In a so-called ‘post-photographic age’, why would a painter want to paint a face? What is different about this painted face and a photograph? ACTIVITIES t Research portraits of the same iconic contemporary or historical figures, made by different artists and photographers (e.g. Princess Diana by Mario Testino and by Stella Vine). Examine the similarities and differences achieved in works. t Find other examples where artists have deliberately distorted an image, and consider the various reasons for and effects of this. Use digital imaging software to try out distortion techniques in portraiture. t Choose someone you know well and experiment with a range of media and techniques to build up an expressive portrait rather than an exact likeness.

8 TRIPTYCH – AUGUST 1972, 1972 Oil on canvas. 198 cm x 147.5 cm each. Tate

Bacon formed a series of homosexual relationships from his teens onwards and frequently painted his friends and lovers. The eight room of this exhibition is dedicated to George Dyer, with whom Bacon had a relationship for nearly a decade. Bacon claimed that they first met when Dyer tried to burgle his flat in 1963. Dyer, who had spent stretches in borstal and prison, became Bacon’s lover, constant companion and his most frequent model. Dyer, who was from London’s East End, was never at ease in Bacon’s bohemian set of friends. Their stormy relationship was to end tragically in 1971 when, on the eve of Bacon’s major retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris, Dyer committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates in the hotel room they were sharing. From this time onwards Bacon used the large-scale triptych (three-part painting) for his major works. The format is traditionally associated with religious subjects, but here Bacon reworks it to give gravitas to the images of Dyer. As well as his own memory, and invention, he often also used photographs. In particular he admired the work of the nineteeth-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge whose works follow a figure through a sequence of movements, such as running or walking down a staircase, taken on a series of consecutive camera frames. Bacon also admired the Vogue photographer John Deakin whom he commissioned to photograph his circle of friends. Bacon used photographs of Dyer, taken by John Deakin for this work. The discovery of lists of subjects and preparatory drawings challenge the assertion that Bacon’s art was spontaneous. This revelation resonates with Edgar Degas’ admission that ‘no art is less spontaneous than mine’; he took inordinate pains to make his paintings appear easily achieved – reworking and rubbing out to make them look the work of a moment. This image is both naturalistic, but also deliberately artificial. The images are melting, and we are uncertain of what we see. The figure is humanoid but disfigured or distorted. For some it has the aspect of a medieval torture scene, of the condemned man whose body is being ripped open or cut up. The interior resembles a sitting room but is also a series of almost abstract planes where the smoothness of the unbroken colour contrasts with the messiness which looks both like paint itself and blood. It is both a staged domestic scene and an abstract construction. Once we know something of the biographical detail our response to the painting causes us to see this as being about Dyer’s death. Is the tortured figure a depiction of Dyer’s inner suffering, Bacon’s torment, or everyman’s angst? DISCUSSION t Why would Bacon want his paintings to seem spontaneous? t Why do you think Bacon reached an international audience while other artists did not? What was it about his work that caused buyers – galleries, dealers, friends and interested individuals to buy it? t Ask a friend how s/he sees this painting, then reveal the biographical information. How does this change their response of the image? ACTIVITY t The triptych lends itself to a series of moments in time or different versions of an event. Make a triptych of a friend or figure in the public eye showing three important events in their life. You might think of a politician – rise, rule & fall; or a love affair - falling in and out of love and finally separation. t Damien Hirst has said in a recent interview about Bacon “He looks into the mirror and he sees meat.” Take a series of photographs of your circle of friends and/or family, and use these images to paint as naturalistic an image as possible. Experiment with smearing or brushing this figurative image and examine the result. Is it distressing? Does it make the face look damaged? Can we read it as a metaphor of what happens to all flesh? t Bacon must have experienced several different emotions, perhaps conflicting ones, in making this painting. Can you create a three-dimensional piece that expresses similar conflicts of emotion?

10 SECOND VERSION OF TRIPTYCH 1944, 1988 Oil on canvas. 198 cm x 147.5 cm. Tate

Bacon’s work is not about beauty as most people would understand the concept. It is raw, disturbing, and often very difficult to look at, particularly in his portrayal of people and the human condition. Asked about the explicit violence of his work he replied “Well, of course, we are meat, we are potential carcasses”. This painting is a later version of Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion a work, painted within two weeks in 1944, and which Bacon considered to be his masterwork, with the hallmarks of his later paintings: the distortion, the screaming mouth, the hot red-orange colour. It has been said that the 1944 work was a response to the horrific images and experiences of World War II. The title of the work is religious: the Crucifixion, which has been a constant subject in western visual art for centuries. It is in three parts like a medieval triptych. But Bacon was not religious and here there is no Christ and no cross, just the figures at its base. The imagery is not naturalistic: the figures are part human, part animal. In Paris in 1927 Bacon saw paintings of biomorphic images by Picasso. He said that these works led him to become a painter. The influence of classical Greek tragedy is often cited in connection with this work. Bacon later related the figures in this work to the Eumenides, the vengeful Furies in Aeschylus’ Orestia. The penultimate section of this exhibition looks at Bacon’s response to drama and literature. Bacon admired the poetry of T.S. Eliot, especially ‘The Waste Land’. Eliot stated that great works of art had to be reinvented for each age. We can see Bacon doing just that in this work – reinventing Greek tragedy and the Christian tradition. Bacon has made an unusual interpretation of a subject that has resonated powerfully in Western Europe over the past 2,000 years. Here we cannot tell if these figure studies are distorted with grief, wailing at the foot of the cross, or if they are mocking tormentors. The Christian tradition is used by contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst, whose vitrines in Romance in the Age of Uncertainty are named after the disciples and the evangelists, and by black hip hop artists like Coolio who responds to the beauty of the language of the psalms reinvented in Gangsta’s Paradise: “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothing left…” DISCUSSION t If you did not know the title of the first version of this work would you see it differently? What would you call it? t Which other artists or musicians use religious text or imagery in a non-religious contexts? Find examples and discuss them. t Can you think of powerful images you have seen in films which you might use as a still image on which to base a body of work? For instance, the artist Peter Doig used a still from the low-budget horror movie Friday 13th as a starting point for a number of his paintings. The resulting works are peaceful despite their source image. ACTIVITIES t How would you choose to make a work of art that registered anger or grief – like a response to war, invasion, or destruction? t Consider this piece in relation to other depictions of the crucifixion (for example The Crucifixion 1515 by Matthias Grunewald and The Descent from the Cross 1612–14 by Rubens). How do all these artists use poses, movement and facial expressions to show a range of emotions? Use role-play to explore the possible interpretations of Bacon’s figures. How do these make you feel? Develop these initial exercises into a longer performance or dance piece. t Working in collaboration with another student, build non-natural figures by creating and collating different animal parts, and making a hybrid that somehow represents both of you. What do you feel towards this hybrid? Pity, love, curiosity, affection? What happens when a whole group of these creatures are placed together? Suggest that others give an adjective to describe the individual pieces and the collective work. A key work card exploring Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion c1944 is available within the Tate Britain Teachers’ Kit through the Tate Shop. 11