FRANCIS BACON BORN AT 63 LOWER BAGGOT STREET

FRANCIS BACON BORN AT 63 LOWER BAGGOT STREET [PAINT-A-BOX STREET ART]


Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born figurative painter known for his emotionally charged raw imagery. He produced series of images of popes, crucifixions and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical cages, set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon said that he saw images "in series", and his work, which numbers c. 590 extant paintings along with many others he destroyed, typically focuses on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats.

His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on single motifs; including the 1930s Picasso-influenced bio-morphs and Furies, the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the 1950s screaming popes, the mid-to-late 1950s animals and lone figures, the early 1960s crucifixions, the mid-to-late 1960s portraits of friends, the 1970s self-portraits, and the cooler, more technical 1980s paintings.

Since his death Bacon's reputation has grown steadily, and his work is among the most acclaimed, expensive and sought-after on the art market. In the late 1990s a number of major works, previously assumed destroyed, including early 1950s popes and 1960s portraits, re-emerged to set record prices at auction. In 2013, his Three Studies of Lucian Freud set the world record as the most expensive piece of art sold at auction.