The Francis Bacon Collection - (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

An essential compendium for connoisseurs of drawing, students of Bacon, and all those attuned to the mesmerizing correspondences that flicker between epochs, this book offers a meditation on paper on influence, inheritance, artistic self-inquiry, and the continuity of human form and emotion across time. Text in English and Italian.

The Francis Bacon Collection is the result of an extraordinarily lengthy discovery and authentication process of previously unpublished works by Francis Bacon. This stunning volume includes the nearly 700 drawings, pastels, and collages in possession of Italian journalist Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. All the works have been photographed in ultra-high gigapixel, captured exclusively for the book. Commentaries and essays especially written for this edition are by noted art historians Edward Lucie-Smith and Fernando Casto Florez, together with an authentication report by Ambra Draghetti, the graphological consultant to the Court of Bologna for the authentication process. This elegantly produced edition presents new scholarship by Professor Umberto Guarini, who defended the legal authentication of the works at the Court of Bologna; Dino Cura, the President of The Francis Bacon Collection; and by Professor Maurizio Saracini, who pioneered the use of multi-spectrum diagnostic imaging and applied his technique to the drawings providing fascinating new details for the first time.

Text in English and Italian.

About the Author

Fernando Castro Flórez is a Spanish art critic and philosopher specializing in aesthetics, and professor of Art Theory and History at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is also a curator of exhibitions and a contributor to the Culture section of the Spanish newspaper ABC. He is known for his erudite, cynical, and passionate style. Edward Lucie-Smith was born in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to Britain in 1946. He began his career as an education officer in the R.A.F., and then worked in advertising for 10 years before becoming a freelance author. He is now an internationally known art critic and historian, who is also a published poet, an anthologist and a practicing photographer. Dino Cura is the President of The Francis Bacon Collection. Umberto Guerini is a lawyer and a professor of criminal law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Bologna. He defended and followed the legal authentication process the drawings were subjected to before being declared to be by Francis Bacon. Ambra Draghetti is a graphological consultant at the Court of Bologna, who examined, studied, and authenticated Francis Bacon's signatures on the drawings for 13 years. Maurizio Seracini is a pioneer in the use of multispectral imaging and analytical technologies applied to works of art and monumental buildings. He joined UC San Diego in 2006, more than 30 years after graduating from UCSD with a B.S. in bio-engineering in 1973 and a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padua in 1976. Seracini has studied over 4,300 works of art, most notably Leonardo da Vinci's lost mural, the Battle of Anghiari, and The Last Supper, Boticelli's Allegory of Spring and Caravaggio's Medusa.