Francis Bacon

English

1909 – 1992

Francis Bacon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and an Australian-born English father of affluent means. After early years of travel and odd-jobs in London, Berlin and Paris, Bacon settled in London and made a career as an interior designer. He began to paint sporadically during the 1930’s and was given his first one-man show at the Transition Gallery in London. Bacon’s lack of training was a handicap that he turned to an advantage. Uninhibited by formal skills or rules of composition, he painted for effect. His unique feverish, distorted anthropomorphic style began to emerge in the 1940’s. During the 1950’s, he achieved an international reputation as a painter. Bacon spent time in Monte Carlo, Tangier and Paris, but his home and studio were in London, where he attracted people from a variety of backgrounds into his social circle with his wit and high spirits. Many of these individuals were featured in his portraits. During his lifetime, Bacon had major exhibitions in cities, including London, Paris, New York, Dublin, Los Angeles and Moscow. Towards the end of his career, Bacon was considered Britain’s finest figurative painter. Bacon passed away in Madrid on the 28th of April, 1992. Since his passing, Bacon’s reputation has steadily grown. He was the subject of two major Tate retrospectives during his lifetime and received a third in 2008, and a major exhibition in 2009 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. His works sell for multimillions in auction.