Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992)

Three Studies for Self-Portrait

June 1972
    Oil on canvas, in three parts
35.5 × 30.5 cm each
Signatures and Inscriptions
Signed, titled and dated ΄3 Studies for / Self Portrait 1972 / Francis Bacon΄ (on the verso of each canvas)
Provenance

Artist’s studio

Marlborough Fine Art, London

Private collection, since 1972

Exhibited

London, Marlborough Fine Art, 19th & 20th Century Masters, summer 1972, not in catalogue

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Francis Bacon: Recent Paintings 1968-1974, 20 March – 29 June 1975, no. 21, illustrated on the cover

London, The Tate Gallery, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie and Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Francis Bacon, respectively 22 May – 18 August 1985, 19 October 1985 – 5 January 1986 and 7 February – 31 March 1986, no. 80, ill.

Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Francis Bacon Retrospektive, June-October 1987, no. 30

Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Homage to Francis Bacon: With works by Picasso, Giacometti, González, Miró, Dubuffet, Tàpies, Rothko, June-September 1992, no. 7

Lugano, Museo d’Arte Moderna, Francis Bacon, 7 March – 30 May 1993, no. 43

London, Marlborough Fine Art, Francis Bacon 1909-1992: Small Portrait Studies, 21 October – 3 December 1993, no. 22, ill.

Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, From London, 17 November 1995 – 4 February 1996, not in catalogue

Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art-Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Classics of Modern Art, 27 June – 19 September 1999, pp. 136-139, ill. pp. 136, 137, 139

Paris, Musée Picasso, Bacon-Picasso: La vie des images, 2 March – 30 May 2005, no. 2, pp. 16-17, ill.

Literature

John Russell, Francis Bacon, London, 1971, ill. p. 87, p. 163

Nigel Gosling, “Painting and sculpture,” Observer Magazine, 2 September 1973, ill. p. 22

Donald Kuspit, “Francis Bacon: The Authority of Flesh.” Artforum, vol. 13, no. 10, summer 1975, ill. p. 54

Stephen Spender, “Armature and alchemy,” Times Literary Supplement, London, 21 March 1975, ill. p. 290 (installation shot)

Lorenza Trucchi, Francis Bacon, London, Thames and Hudson, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1976, no. 160, ill.

Michel Leiris, Francis Bacon: Full Face and in Profile, Oxford, Phaidon, New York, Rizzoli, 1983, no. 78, ill.

“The master of travesty,” Yorkshire Post, 10 June 1985, ill. p. 7 (installation shot)

Michael Kimmelman, “The art of ordered chaos,” The Times, 2 September 1989, ill. p. 25 (center panel)

John Russell, “Vogue Arts: Francis Bacon”, Vogue, 182:7, New York, 1 July 1992, ill. p. 68 (center panel)

José Maria Faerna (ed.), Great Modern Masters: Bacon, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1995, no. 48, ill. p. 46

Wieland Schmied, Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict, Munich and New York Prestel Verlag, 1996, no. 7, ill. p. 11

Milan Kundera and France Borel, Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits, London and New York, Thames and Hudson, 1996, ill. pp. 64, 65 (left panel), ill. p. 66 (center panel), ill. p. 67 (right panel)

Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma, revised edition, London, Constable, 2008, p. 307

Sam Hunter, Francis Bacon, Modern Masters series, Barcelona, Ediciones Polígrafa, 2009, ill. p. 60

Martin Harrison, Francis Bacon: Catalogue raisonné, London, The Estate of Francis Bacon, 2016, pp. 22, 998, 1000, 1014, 1016, 1102, 1124, ill. pp. 1016-1017

Current location
Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens
Floor 2nd
Tour Guide Code
220
Audio Guide

Francis Bacon’s portraits, despite all the distortions they underwent, they are recognizable and by some inexplicable irony, also realistic. He accomplished this particularly with one of his most recurrent models: himself. Bacon’s self-portraits, whether they are composed of a single or multiple canvasses, whether they are small or large, reveal the artist as a man and attract the viewer as much as they destabilize him with their ruthless truth.

Bacon was not fond of painting from nature. He rather preferred to work alone in his studio, based on photo negatives of his close friends or himself, taken on an ordinary Photomaton. It seems an inadequate explanation to assert that Bacon painted so many self-portraits simply for lack of available models. Sitting himself before the easel to paint his own image could not possibly be harmless. It was rather a way of making himself confront the eye that mercilessly scrutinizes, even if it means “injuring”. It is also a way of delimiting the boundary between the living and the dead. In painting his own person, however much the artist mistreats, even disfigures himself on the canvas, he does not come off as being less alive.

In his numerous triptychs, he put his canvasses in a sequence, like photographs, imparting a feeling of dynamism and liveliness to his work. Over time, he decided that he would work in two specific formats: large-scale and small-scale. The small pieces of the triptychs were always given the title “study” and labelled as such, despite their high degree of completion, they feature only the face of each model. The Three studies for a self-portrait is probably the second one from the eleven works entitled as such, that Bacon painted until his death.

Bacon holds his head high, eyes closed against a black background. He wears a bright blue shirt which like the sun reflects some glints of the same hue onto his cheeks, eyes and nose. Looking the painting from the left to the right, we observe how the face gets progressively erased, as if devoured by the void that surrounds it. In the last painting, both the right eye and the cheekbone are no longer visible. Likewise, the mouth undergoes a similarly sinister distortion. Shamelessly exposing the flaws in his physiognomy, the artist places his eyes at the centre of the composition. Larger than life-size, the eyelids remain stubbornly shut, refusing to reveal their secrets. Yet under no circumstances should this stance be perceived as a provocation. Instead, it is a sign of shyness, of modesty, and above all of sadness. Thus, the viewer cannot help but respect this triple figure, obviously wracked by suffering that prefers to keep to himself.

Three studies for a self-portrait was one of Bacon’s favourite works and the third panel that was selected to grace the cover of his personal exhibition catalogue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1975.

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Francis Bacon
(1909 - 1992)
Gender
Man
Nationality
British, Irish
First Name
Francis
Last Name
Bacon
Birth
Dublin, Ireland, 1909
Death
Madrid, Spain, 1992