The man who put the pain in paint: Francis Bacon

Q. So, was the great 20th-century painter related to the 16th-century polymath asked lovelylad

A. The Grove Dictionary of Art says that the artist Francis Bacon 'was probably a collateral descendant of the famous Elizabethan essayist and statesman Sir Francis Bacon', so interpret that as you will. Whatever, one of the great figures of Elizabethan and early Stuart England and possibly the most important - certainly the most daunting - British artist of the second half of the 20th century shared the same name.

�

Q. And a quick r�sum� of the painter's life

A. As famous for his squalid and destructive lifestyle as he was for his beautifully executed but tormented paintings, Francis Bacon was a towering figure in British art. Born of in 1909 in Dublin, the son of an English racehorse trainer, Bacon was educated mostly by private tutors at home until his parents banished him at age 16, allegedly for pursuing his homosexual proclivities. He drifted in Berlin and Paris before settling in London in 1928, after which he worked as an interior decorator. He had also begun painting, though he did so without any success until 1945, at which time the original and powerful style displayed in such works as 'Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion' (1944) won him almost instant notoriety.

�

Between that time and his death in Madrid in 1992 he produced a body of work which was unrivalled in its unshrinkingly brutal expression of personal isolation and suffering. Despite the genuinely disturbing nature of much of his work, he was much feted and his success was such that he left �11 million pounds in his will.

�

Q. And his work

One of his more famous pieces is known as 'The Screaming Popes' (early 1950s), in which he converted Diego Vel�zquez's famous 'Portrait of Pope Innocent X' into a nightmarish icon of hysterical terror. This was the final painting in a series of Heads, and he painted other series, such as 1953's pictures of a seated figure, known as Study for a Portrait I-VIII. Like his contemporary Frank Auerbach, he returned to the same models again and again, exploring the familiar in new and surprising ways.

�

Although Bacon generally painted with conventional brushes, he also applied the paint directly with his fingers or modified the surface by dabbing it with sponges or rags. He often referred to photographs while painting, always choosing images taken by others or found in books. Another idiosyncratic working method is that he maintained that - unlike most artists - he painted his finished works without making preliminary sketches, preferring to go straight to canvas.

�

Q. But hasn't some evidence come to light suggesting that this may not be strictly true

A. Last year's (2001) controversial exhibition at the Barbican in London, Bacon's Eye: Works on Paper Attributed to Francis Bacon from the Barry Joule Archive, exhibited a number of artefacts which may have been preliminary sketches for larger works, thus suggesting that he might have worked, at least on occasion, in a more conventional way.

�

Q. '...may have been...'

A. There is a bitter row over the authenticity of the so-called Barry Joule Archive, with Bacon's heirs highly sceptical about many of the items. Barry Joule was a friend and neighbour of Bacon's, and he often helped the painter out. Four days before Bacon's death he gave Joule a box of papers from his studio, saying 'You know what to do with it.'

�

While there is no doubt about the authenticity of some of the artefacts - and most commentators accept that all the papers originated in the artist's studio - there is dispute over the handiwork of some of the drawings and overdrawings on photographs, and some suggestion that some of the penwork may have been executed after the artist's death. Hence the 'attributed' in the exhibition's title.

�

Q. Wasn't there a film about Bacon recently

There was. Love Is the Devil, starring Derek Jacobi (who looked scarily like Bacon in the role) and directed by John Maybury, was released in 1998. Based largely on elements from the book The Guilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon by Daniel Farson, the film focused on Bacon's long-term stormy and sado-masochistic relationship with his lover-model-muse George Dyer, which ended with Dyer's death in 1971.

�

Farson was, like his friend Bacon, one of the great alcoholic figures of Soho's 'golden' age between the 1940s and 1960s, and his depiction of the artist - while eminently readable - only reinforces much of what we already knew of Bacon and his life. Farson was, after all, Soho's unofficial biographer, and it served his purposes to prop up the 'boho' image without ever addressing the horror and emptiness of much of the Soho scene.

�

See also the answerbank articles on Matthew Smith, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach

�

For more on Arts & Literature click here

�

By Simon Smith