Francis Bacon: Human Presence - by Rosie Broadley (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The first volume in over 20 years dedicated to Bacon's unconventional, psychologically trenchant portraits

Featuring works from the 1950s onward, this book explores the genre-defying portraiture of Irish British artist Francis Bacon (1909-92). It is the first publication in over 20 years dedicated to this facet of Bacon's practice. From his responses to portraiture by earlier artists to large-scale paintings memorializing lost lovers, these selected works showcase Bacon's life story. In addition to the artist's self-portraits, sitters include Lucian Freud, Isabel Rawsthorne and his lovers Peter Lacy and George Dyer.
From his renowned triptychs and paintings of ghostly figures to tender and psychologically revealing individual portraits, the figurative works displayed in this publication chart the development of a groundbreaking artist, highlighting the influence of his peers and other artists. Francis Bacon: Human Presence also features illustrated biographies of Bacon and his circle, bringing lesser-told stories to the fore.

Review Quotes

Francis Bacon's distorted forms, caught in hellish moments, are etched into the brain of those with only a passing interest in the art canon, an eerie familiarity that still doesn't prepare you for the sheer emotionality of his major retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery.--Hannah Silver "Wallpaper*"

Meditations on ethics and artistry serve as the undercurrents of Ross's second poetry collection.-- "The New York Times Book Review"