Triptych — May–June 1973
1973 · Oil on canvas (triptych) · 198 × 147 cm
Figure with Meat
1954 · Oil on canvas · 130 × 122 cm
Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X
1953 · Oil on canvas · 153 × 118 cm
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
1944 · Oil and pastel on hardboard · 94 × 74 cm
Three Studies of Lucian Freud
1969 · Oil on canvas (triptych) · 198 × 147 cm
Francis Bacon (1909–1992) was a British figurative painter known for his raw, disturbing, and emotionally powerful images of distorted human figures. Self-taught, he became one of the most important and influential painters of the 20th century. His Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) sold for $142.4 million in 2013, setting a then-record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
His most celebrated works include Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953), Triptych — May–June 1973, and Figure with Meat (1954). The screaming pope paintings, inspired by Velázquez, are among the most iconic images in modern art.
Bacon is classified as a figurative painter, working against the dominant trend of abstraction during his career. His style features distorted, screaming figures trapped in geometric structures or flat planes of color, painted with broad, violent brushstrokes. He drew inspiration from Velázquez, Rembrandt, Picasso, photography (especially Muybridge), and medical textbooks.
Bacon died on April 28, 1992, at the age of 82, in Madrid, Spain, from cardiac arrest complicated by pneumonia. He had traveled to Madrid despite being in poor health, drawn by his love of the city and the Prado museum. He was an asthmatic who lived a notoriously hard-drinking, chaotic lifestyle.
Bacon's paintings are disturbing because they depict the human figure in states of extreme distortion, isolation, and anguish — screaming, dissolving, or trapped in claustrophobic spaces. He sought to paint the "brutality of fact" and record the reality of existence without sentimentality. He drew on his own turbulent life, including his difficult childhood, his identity as a gay man in mid-century Britain, and his exposure to violence and trauma.
This page features public domain works by Francis Bacon and is not managed by the artist.
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