FRANCIS BACON: CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ

Published 30th June 2016

by The Estate of Francis Bacon francis-bacon.com

F RA NC I S BAC ON CATA LO GU E R A I S ON N É Edited by Martin Harrison, FSA

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The Catalogue

Francis Bacon “Francis Bacon (1909–92) is widely regarded as Britain’s greatest modern painter. Drawing on low-art sources, including photographs torn from magazines and imagery from films, coupled with a keen awareness of the rich historical tradition of painting stretching back to the Renaissance, Bacon developed a way of portraying the human body which was unique. His mastery of the medium of paint was recognised early. By 1946, the critic Kenneth Clark felt able to state simply: ‘Francis Bacon has genius’.”

Francis Bacon (Tate Publishing, 2008)

Martin Harrison, fsa Since 1970, Martin Harrison has published on 19th and 20th century art and photo­ graphy and curated exhibitions in the UK (Victoria & Albert Museum; National Portrait Gallery; Ashmolean Museum), Italy, the USA and Mexico. He co-curated the Bacon exhibition at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf in 2006, and Francis Bacon / Henry Moore: Flesh and Bone, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2013.

His first publication on Francis Bacon was Points of Reference (Faggionato Fine Art, 1999), while other publications on the subject include In Camera: Francis Bacon – Photography, Film and the Practice of Painting, (Thames & Hudson, 2005) and Francis Bacon: Incunabula, with Rebecca Daniels, (Thames & Hudson, 2008). In 2009 he edited Francis Bacon – New Studies: Centenary Essays, a collection of nine original essays to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the artist.

Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné is a landmark publishing event that presents the entire oeuvre of Bacon’s paintings for the first time and includes many previously un­published works. The impeccably produced five-volume, slipcased publication, containing each of Bacon’s 584 paintings, has been edited by Martin Harrison, FSA, the pre-eminent expert on Bacon’s work, alongside research assistant Dr Rebecca Daniels. An ambitious and pain­staking project that has been ten years in the making, this seminal visual document eclipses in scope any previous publication on the artist and will have a profound effect on the perception of his work.

Containing around 800 illustrations across 1,538 pages within five cloth-bound hardcover volumes, the three volumes that make up the study of Bacon’s entire painting oeuvre are bookended by two further volumes: the former including an introduction and a chronology, and the latter a catalogue of Bacon’s sketches, an index, and a bibliography compiled by Krzysztof Cieszkowski. Printed on 170 gsm GardaMatt Ultra stock in Bergamo, Italy at Castelli Bolis, the five volumes of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné are boxed within a cloth-bound slipcase, and supplied within a bespoke protective shipping carton.

In addition to the 584 paintings, the catalogue will contain illuminating supporting material. This includes sketches

by Bacon, photographs of early states of paintings, images of Bacon’s furniture, hand-written notes by the artist, photographs of Bacon, his family and circle, and fascinating x-ray and microscope photography of his paintings.

Several major exhibitions on Bacon are scheduled for 2016–17. Francis Bacon: Invisible Rooms runs from 18 May until 18 September 2016 at Tate Liverpool, and from 7 October 2016 until 8 January 2017 at Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. Martin Harrison is the curator of Francis Bacon, Monaco et la culture française which runs at Grimaldi Forum, Monaco from 2 July 2016 until 4 September 2016 and Francis Bacon: From Picasso to Velázquez which runs at Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao from 30 September 2016 until 8 January 2017.

45-06

Study for a Figure, c. 1945

Oil on canvas 48 × 41 in. (122 × 104 cm) (Alley A3) provenAnce Robert Buhler Piccadilly Gallery, London Private collection, Milan Ivor Braka, London Marlborough International Fine Art, Vaduz, acquired from the above 16 March 1983 Private collection, acquired from the above 19 April 2000 Private collection solo exhibitions ‘Francis Bacon: A Terrible Beauty’, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 28 October 2009–7 March 2010 (4) ‘Francis Bacon: In Camera’, Compton Verney, 27 March–20 July 2010 (no cat.) group exhibitions ‘Gianni Dova, Bacon, Moore, Valmier, Lam, Sutherland, Severini, Balla, Saint Phalle, Schiele’, Luca Scacchi Gracco, Milan, January–February 1963 (44) as ‘Woman and Flower’ ‘Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture’, David W. Hughes, London, Summer 1968 (5) ‘Variations autour de la Crucifixion: Regards contemporains sur Grünewald’, Musée d’Unterlinden, Colmar, 26 June– 26 September 1993 (unnum.)

162

Alley considered this to have been a ‘first idea’ for the figure in the left panel of Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944 (44‑01), but a slightly later date is more likely.

It is painted on canvas, not fibreboard, and the dialogue between the head and the bowl of flowers is not otherwise present in Bacon’s work until Figure Study I, 1945–46 (46‑01); (but see also 44‑02).

It is significant that Bacon chose one of the Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion to rework at a larger size, and on canvas, for he appears to have been experimenting with a more painterly expression than in his Picasso‑esque biomorphs. The shuttered ground in Study for a Figure is painted in eau‑de‑nil and buff, but show‑through in the pigmentation at many points confirms that it was originally painted cadmium orange, like the Three Studies. The painting remained in Bacon’s studio until 1951, and it is possible, therefore, that the curtains were added later than 1945.

Study for a Figure is in many respects an advance on Three Studies. The figure’s body, hair and the roses are all virtuoso performances in colour and texture. In concentrating on the substance and expressive qualities of paint, Bacon is turning his attention away from Picasso and towards Rembrandt and Velázquez.

163

63-12

Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, 1963

Oil on canvas Triptych: each panel 14 × 12 in. (35.5 × 30.5 cm) Delivered to Marlborough Fine Art 6 November 1963 (Alley 221) Provenance Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc, New York William S. and Barbara Paley, New York, acquired from the above 1963 Museum of Modern Art, New York Solo exhibitionS ‘Francis Bacon’, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 26 October 1971–10 January 1972; Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, 7 March–7 May 1972 (48) ‘Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads’, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 4 June–4 September 2005 (40) Francis Bacon: The Portraits’, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 13 October 2005–15 January 2006 (29) GrouP exhibitionS ‘Cuatro maestros contemporáneous del arte figurativo: Giacometti, Dubuffet, De Kooning, Bacon’, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, April–May 1973; Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota, 30 May–28 June 1973; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 19 July–24 August 1973 (B6) ‘4 mestres contemporáneos: Giacometti, Dubuffet, de Kooning, Bacon’, Travelling exhibition organised by Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 13 September 1973–7 October 1973; Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, 15 October 1973–4 November 1973 (B8) ‘The William S. Paley Collection’, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2 February–7 May 1992; Indianapolis Museum of Art, 11 September–15 November 1992; Seattle Museum of Art, 17 December 1992–7 February 1993; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 28 February–16 May 1993; San Diego Museum of Art, 9 June–26 September 1993; Baltimore Museum of Art, 31 October 1993–9 January 1994; New Orleans Museum of Art, 6 February–17 April 1994 (4)

732

‘Alberto Giacometti. Francis Bacon: Isabel and Other Intimate Strangers’, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 3 November–13 December 2008 (unnum.)

‘Paint made Flesh’, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, 23 January–10 may 2009; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C., 20 June–13 September 2009 (unnum.)

‘The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism’, The de Young Museum, San Francisco, 15 September– 30 December 2012; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, 2 May– 8 September 2013; Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, 10 October 2013–16 February 2014; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, 15 March–7 July 2014 (unnum)

This was the last of Bacon’s paintings to be documented by Ronald Alley.

In a photograph of Bacon taken by Derek Bayes on 22 October 1963, the completed centre and left panels are visible. Alley noted that the studies ‘were painted partly from life’. If that is correct, it was possibly the last occasion on which Bacon painted from a live model. In all probability John Deakin’s photographs of Moraes were also used as aides-mémoire.

The pointed head and flattened nose in the left panel are quoted from Honoré Daumier’s bronze bust of Baron Joseph de Podenas (c. 1833, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), and possibly also his lithographs of Luigi Filippo. Bacon would return to Daumier’s caricatural distortions several times during the next three years.

Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes marked Bacon’s consummation of the small triptych format that he had initiated with Study for Three Heads, 1962 (62-07) and which he continued to utilise until 1983. The restricted palette of mainly crimson and white on a textured black ground is masterly, as are the energy and motion of the brushstrokes and smearing of the wet pigment. Indeed Bacon’s execution has a power, skill and confidence that he scarcely ever surpassed in this format.

733

65-02

After Muybridge – Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water and Paralytic Child on All Fours, 1965 Oil on canvas 78 × 58 in. (198 × 147.5 cm) provEnancE Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, London, acquired from the artist 31 May 1965 Private collection, Italy, acquired from the above 28 September 1965 Acquavella Galleries Inc, New York Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, ‘Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture’, 15 and 16 May 1980, Lot 546 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

‘Francis Bacon: The Violence of the Real’, K20 Kunstsammlung, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 16 September 2006– 7 January 2007 (35) ‘Francis Bacon: Five Decades’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 November 2012–24 February 2013 (unnum.)

Group Exhibitions ‘La grande parade: Highlights in Painting after 1940’, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1984, 15 December 1984–15 April 1985 (9)

solo Exhibitions

‘Marlene Dumas. Francis Bacon’, Malmö Konsthalle, 18 March–14 May 1995; Museo d’arte contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, 5 June–1 October 1995 (unnum.)

‘Francis Bacon: Recent Painting’, Marlborough New London Gallery, London, July–August 1965 (8)

‘Conversation Piece II’, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, 3 July–10 October 2010

‘Francis Bacon’, Galleria Galatea, Turin, 5 March–4 April 1970 (unnum.)

‘Francis Bacon’, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 26 October 1971–10 January 1972; Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, 7 March–7 May 1972 (58) ‘Francis Bacon’, Tate Gallery, London, 22 May–18 August 1985; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 19 October 1985–5 January 1986; Nationalgalerie Berlin, 7 February–31 March 1986 (46) ‘Francis Bacon: Paintings’, Central House of the Artists, New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 23 September–6 November 1988 (8) ‘Francis Bacon’, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 23 January–26 April 1998 (17) ‘Francis Bacon in Dublin’, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1 June–31 August 2000 (32) Klasycy XX wieku: Picasso, Bacon, Beuys, Duchamp, Kandinsky, Warhol, Malewicz, Dalí, Mondrian, Brancusi’, Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Zachęta, Warsaw, 24 October– 3 December 2000 (unnum.)

‘Francis Bacon’, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 27 January– 13 May 2001 (unnum.)

‘Francis Bacon: Caged. Uncaged’, Fundação de Serralves, Porto, 24 January–20 April 2003 (unnum.)

774

‘Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art’, Kunst Historisches Museum (KHM), Vienna, 15 October 2003–18 January 2004; Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 8 February–20 June 2004 (57)

(Among the paintings by Bacon that were habitually mistitled, this has been misrepresented most frequently.

Caution is advised regarding the incorrect titles in many of the foregoing publications.)

Bacon’s images of extreme situations often seem to be subjects he might have dreamed of, but if that is the case the dream he painted here must have been triggered by consulting Muybridge, a pictorial source acknowledged in the title.

It amalgamates the paralytic child he had painted in 1961 (see 61-04) with and an image suggested by Muybridge’s sequence ‘Woman Throwing a Basin of Water’, extensively modified by Bacon into the contorted stooping pose she has been obliged to adopt on the rail.

Against a ground of stridently clashing red, orange and violet, the circular rail is exceptionally prominent, emphasising the circular motion of the two protagonists in their pointless, interminable activities. The flat planes of colour intensify Bacon’s portrayal of nihilistic exasperation, expressed in the furious painting of the deformed figures.

Deleuze read the figures as a mother and child, which if correct would raise the possibility that Bacon identified with the child.

69-17

Study for Portrait, 1969

Oil and dry transfer lettering on canvas 78 × 58 in. (198 × 147.5 cm) Titled, signed and dated on reverse Photographed January 1970 Provenance Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, London Private collection Solo exhibitionS ‘Francis Bacon’, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 26 October 1971–10 January 1972; Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, 7 March–7 May 1972 (94) GrouP exhibitionS ‘Masters of the 19th and 20th Centuries’, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, London, Summer 1972 (1) ‘La peinture britannique de Gainsborough à Bacon’, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, 9 May–1 September 1977 (156)

928

This important painting has regrettably remained out of public view for almost forty years. It is poorly documented and there is no critical writing attached to it. It was previously, for some reason, dated 1970, but Bacon’s inscription contradicts this. The sitter was not named, but Bacon did not painting generic portraits at this time and an individual personification was clearly intended. In fact the model was a London taxi-driver, Ted Westfallen.

The man is seated, precariously, on what was, for Bacon, a painstakingly-elaborated bentwood open-back armchair, with an additional vertical slat; it was probably Bacon’s reinterpretation of a Thonet design. He is holding – or rather displaying – a newspaper, which may or may not be relevant in Westfallen’s case. To depict the newspaper Bacon applied dry transfer lettering (probably Letraset) to the white paint.

The letters were selected for their graphic effect, and could never be read as text. This was the first appearance of dry transfer lettering on Bacon’s paintings. Its function here is logical, but during the next seventeen years it became a Bacon trope, an increasingly self-referential motif that was subject to considerable variation and re-imagining.

Bacon may have been receptive to the possibilities of Letraset (which was launched in Britain in 1959) because it resonated with long-held interests. One afternoon in the 1930s, Bacon and the Australian writer Patrick White were crossing the River Thames on a temporary footbridge from Battersea, and Bacon ‘became entranced by the abstract graffiti scribbled in pencil on its timbered sides’. White was ‘quite elated’ at having this pointed out to him, and impressed that Bacon had found stimulation in a ‘random’ and apparently inconsequential detail of the urban fabric [Patrick White, 1981, p. 62].

78-01

Painting, 1978

Oil and dry transfer lettering on canvas 78 × 58 in. (198 × 147.5 cm) Titled, signed and dated on reverse Provenance Marlborough Gallery Inc, New York Private collection, Monaco Private collection Solo exhibitionS ‘Francis Bacon: Recent Paintings’, Marlborough Gallery Inc, New York, 26 April–7 June 1980 (3) ‘Francis Bacon: Paintings 1945–1982’, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo’, 30 June–14 August 1983; The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 13 September–10 October 1983; Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, Nagoya, 12 November– 28 November 1983 (37) ‘Francis Bacon’, Tate Gallery, London, 22 May–18 August 1985 (104) ‘Francis Bacon’, Tate Britain, London, 11 September 2008– 4 January 2009 (unnum.)

‘Francis Bacon: Late Paintings’, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 7 November–12 December 2015 (unnum.)

GrouP exhibitionS ‘Eight Figurative Painters’, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 14 October 1981–3 January 1982; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 29 January–28 March 1982 (23)

1142

Bacon told David Sylvester about Painting, 1978: ‘I think that came – I don’t know why I made it turn with the foot – it very much came from that poem of Eliot’s, “I have heard the key / Turn in the door once and turn once only…”. You know.

It comes from The Waste Land. I don’t know why I should have made it turn with the foot. But it did come from that poem’ [Sylvester, p. 150]. Yet Bacon also insisted that the painting was ‘unplanned’ and agreed that the Eliot image ‘is not visible in the work’ (see also Study from the Human Body, 1983, 83‑02).

These irreconcilable statements epitomise the mythologising of the ‘accidental’ formation of Bacon’s imagery. However, in making the key turn with the foot, Bacon crucially departed from the text. The self‑referential (and playful, or witty) gesture again invokes Picasso’s Bather Opening a Cabin (1928, Musée Picasso, Paris). Bacon had planned another painting in which the key would have been turned by a mouth, but eschewed this idea. The function of the doubled figure in this intriguing painting is unclear, but Bacon may have intended the lower figure to be passing through the door that the foot has opened, an exceptional ‘doubling’ of time.

In planning this painting Bacon referred to his Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne, 1967 (67‑17); the angle of the man’s leg, turning the key, replicates Rawsthorne’s arm in the earlier painting, and the red‑rimmed ‘aura’ around the keyhole repeats the cropped table in the same painting.

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Bespoke Shipping Carton

Each copy of Francis Bacon: Catalogue RaisonnĂŠ will be supplied in a bespoke, protective shipping solution.

Specification

Title

Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné

Price

£1,000 | $1,500 | €1,400

Publication Date 30th June 2016 ISBN

978-0-9569273-1-6

Trim Size

310 × 245 mm / 12.2 × 9.6 in

Binding

Five volumes, cloth-bound hardcover and boxed slipcase

Paper Stock

GardaMatt Ultra 170 gsm

Pagination

1,538 pp total (104, 430, 444, 424, 136 pp per vol)

Illustrations

800 colour

Packaging

Production

Supplied in bespoke protective shipping carton Designed by Tony Waddingham and Martin Harrison Printed in Italy by Castelli Bolis, Bergamo Reproduction scans by Olivier Dengis, Brussels

Volume One

Introduction / Science / Chronology / Users’ Guide

Volume Two

Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1929–57)

Volume Three

Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1958–71)

Volume Four

Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1971–92)

Volume Five

Bacon’s Sketches / Bibliography (compiled by Krzysztof Cieszkowski) / Index / Acknowledgements