It was not until World War II that Bacon, who by then had returned to Britain, got down to painting in earnest. “It is one of the few things I do regret.” “I regret not starting to paint earlier,” he says now. Despite the fact that both the French and German capitals were humming with artistic experimentation at the time, Bacon recalls that he had little real interest in becoming an artist. (Some biographers have said that Bacon is a collateral relative of the Elizabethan philosopher Sir Francis, but the painter himself has never bothered to verify the claim.) By the age of 16, Bacon had become a wanderer: he spent most of his youth in Paris and Berlin, dabbling in the seamier sides of life and working intermittently as an interior decorator and furniture designer. Although his appearance is that of a man in his early 50s, he was born 67 years ago, the son of an English trainer of race horses in Dublin. (A painting by jasper Johns that sold for $240,000 in 1973 holds the price record at Sotheby Parke Bernet for a living American artist.) When New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a three month show of Bacon’s work two years ago, nearly 200,000 people flocked to see it.īacon’s road to such international renown and financial success has been neither short nor straight. One work by Bacon that sold in 1953 for a mere $85 is now valued at $171,000, and among the paintings on display in the Claude Bernard show will be a massive three panel work priced at $500,000. And the furious controversy that has swirled around him and his paintings has helped make Bacon one of the world’s highest priced and most courted artists. Bacon’s grisly visions have outraged scores of critics and made devoted disciples of many others. Whatever the theme, the mood is one of stark isolation and the impact is always disturbing. A third recurrent subject is a contorted nude figure retching into a bathroom sink in one version, nailed to a cot by a hypodermic syringe in another. Another is a disembodied mouth, teeth bared in a scream. One of Francis Bacon’s favorite themes is a human face – often his own caught as if at the instant of a nuclear holocaust. What will make this particular hubbub all the more remarkable is the fact that the occasion for it will be the opening this week of a six week showing of a selection of recent works by English artist Francis Bacon a man whose painting critics have variously described as “ nightmarish,” “grotesque” and “sadistic.”Īnd not without reason. Arts that runs in front of the Galerie Claude Bernard may well have to be closed to traffic an understandable precaution in view of the fact that the staff of the fashionable gallery is braced for, an onslaught of as many as 5,000 people within a matter of a few hours.įor any living painter to be the object of this kind of hub-bub is unusual. (One group of Italian critics and gallery owners plans to arrive in ii chartered jet.) To make sure things don’t get out of hand, the section of the narrow rue. So will the cream of le tout Paris and a legion of Europe’s top art critics. French Minister of Culture Francoise Giroud will be there in company with other prominent government officials. For weeks the Parisian art world has been gearing up for the great day. Mooney, "Agony and the Artist," Newsweek, 24 January 1977.
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