Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Three Studies for a Crucifixion, March 1962, Oil with sand on canvas, three panels, 78 x 57", Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (64.1700), © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London.

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Triptych, 1991, Oil on canvas, 78 x 58-1/8", The Museum of Modern Art, New York. William A. M. Burden Fund and Nelson A. Rockefeller Bequest Fund (both by exchange), 2003, Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY, © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London.

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Blood on Pavement, 1988, Oil on canvas, 77-15/16 x 5-1/16", Private collection, © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London.

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Portrait of John Edwards, 1988, Oil on canvas, 77-15/16 x 58-1/16", The Estate of Francis Bacon, courtesy Faggionato Fine Arts, London, and Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London.

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho, 1967, Oil on canvas, 77-15/16 x 58-1/16", Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London.

Metropolitan
Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
at 82nd Street
212-535-7710
New York
Special Exhibition Galleries,
2nd floor
Francis Bacon:
A Centenary
Retrospective
May 20-August 16, 2009

Entirely self-taught, Francis Bacon emerged in 1945 as a major force in British painting. He rose to prominence over the subsequent 45 years, securing his reputation as one of the seminal artists of his generation. With a predilection for shocking imagery, Bacon’s oeuvre was dominated by emotionally charged depictions of the human body that are among the most powerful images in the history of art.

The first major New York exhibition in 20 years devoted to Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992) — one of the most important painters of the 20th century — marks the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth, Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective brings together the most significant works from each period of the artist’s remarkable career. Drawn from public and private collections around the world, this landmark exhibition consists of some 65 paintings, complemented by never-before-seen works and archival material from the Francis Bacon Estate, which sheds new light on the artist’s career and working practices. The Metropolitan Museum is the sole U.S. venue of the exhibition tour.

The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Tate Britain, London, in partnership with the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

“Bacon is more compelling than ever: despite the passage of time, his paintings remain fresh, urgent, and mysterious. Never before has this work been more relevant to young artists,” noted Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. “For these reasons, we are very pleased to be able to present a retrospective spanning his entire career to our viewing public.”

The exhibition’s loosely chronological structure traces critical themes in Bacon’s work and explore his philosophy about mankind and the modern condition with visually arresting examples. The earliest group of works, from the 1940s and 1950s, focuses on the animalistic qualities of man, including: paintings of heads with snarling mouths (Head I, 1947-1948, The Metropolitan Museum of Art); images of men as pathetic and alone (Study for a Portrait, 1953, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany); and the human figure portrayed as base and bestial (Figures in a Landscape, 1956, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, England). The exhibition also features numerous versions of Bacon’s iconic studies (1949-1953) after Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Innocent X (1650). Mortality is addressed directly in his last works (Triptych, 1991, The Museum of Modern Art, New York).

In the 1960s, working in his classic style of much looser, colorful, and expressive painting, Bacon showed the human body exposed and violated as in, for example, Lying Figure, 1969 (Foundation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland). In the following decade he increasingly used narrative, autobiography, and myth to mediate ideas about violence and emotion, as in the 1971 painting In Memory of George Dyer (Foundation Beyeler) and Triptych Inspired by the Orestia of Aeschylus, 1981 (Astrup Fearnley Collection, Oslo, Norway).

A number of important works by Bacon only presented at the Metropolitan Museum, including Study for Portrait I, 1953 (Denise and Andrew Saul); Painting, 1946 (The Museum of Modern Art, New York); and Self Portrait, 1973 (private collection, courtesy Richard Nagy, London).

Central to an understanding of the artist’s working methods are the large caches of archival materials that have only become available since Bacon’s death, especially the contents of the artist’s famously cluttered London studio. A rich selection of 65 items from the studio, his estate, and other archives are included in the exhibition. The objects include pages the artist tore from books and magazines, photographs, and sketches — all of which are source materials for the finished paintings on view in the exhibition.

The curators of Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective are Gary Tinterow, Matthew Gale, Head of Displays, Tate Modern, and Chris Stephens, Head of Displays, Tate Britain. The presentation of the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum is organized by Gary Tinterow and Anne L. Strauss, Associate Curator, assisted by Ian Alteveer, Research Associate, all in the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Exhibition design is by Michael Langley, Senior Exhibition Designer, with graphic design by Sophia Geronimus, Senior Graphic Designer, and lighting by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Senior Lighting Designers, all of the Museum's Design Department.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Martin Harrison, David Mellor, Simon Ofield, Rachel Tant, Gary Tinterow, and Victoria Walsh. The catalogue is published by Tate Publishing and is available in the Museum’s book shops ($60 cloth, $40 paperback).

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Three Studies for a Self-Portrait, 1979–1980, Oil on canvas, 14-3/4 x 12-1/2", each, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998 (1999.363.1a-c), © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London.

Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, c.1944, Tate © Tate.

Francis Bacon, Crucifixion, 1965, Oil on canvas, each panel 197.2 x 147 cm, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich.

Francis Bacon, Figure with Meat, 1954, Oil on canvas, 129.9 x 121.9 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Harriott A. Fox Fund, 1956.1201.

Francis Bacon, Study After Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953, Oil on canvas, 153 x 118.1 cm, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa.

Tate Britain
Millbank
London
+44 20 7887 8888
Linbury Galleries
Francis Bacon
September 11, 2008-
January 4, 2009

An exhibition of the work of Francis Bacon (1909-1992) will be a major celebration heralding the artist’s centenary in 2009. As the first UK retrospective since 1985, it will afford a re-assessment of his work in the light of the new research that has emerged since the revelation of his studio and its contents following the artist’s death. Comprising around 60 works and covering the artist’s career, the exhibition will bring together the most important works from each period of his life. It will be the largest display to date to examine Bacon’s sources, processes and thoughts.

Francis Bacon is widely acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s greatest painters of the figure. His paintings of the 1940s bore witness to the shattered psychology of the time and shot him to prominence that hardly diminished over the next fifty years. He captured sexuality, violence and isolation in his unflinching depictions of the anxieties of the modern condition.

The exhibition will explore Bacon’s philosophy that man is simply another animal in this godless world,subject to the same natural urges of violence, lust and fear that are physically evident in the body. Bacon’s output was dominated by the human body but these works will be displayed, just as they were when they were first made, with a number of representations of animals and visceral landscapes. The exhibition will bring together many celebrated paintings and triptychs including Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944 (Tate Collection), Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953 (Des Moines Art Center, Iowa), Crucifixion, 1965 (Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich) and In Memory of George Dyer, 1971 (Fondation Beyler, Basel).

The exhibition is curated by Matthew Gale, Head of Displays, Tate Modern, and Chris Stephens, Head of Displays, Tate Britain. An accompanying catalogue will bring together a range of authors and will serve as a review and development of recent scholarship. The exhibition will tour to Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid from 3 February-19 April 2009. It will be the first ever major Bacon retrospective in Madrid, the city where he died in 1992 and which houses the great works of the artists he most admired, Velazquez and Goya. It will then travel to the US to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from 18 May-16 August 2009.

Francis Bacon was born in 1909 in Dublin, of English parents. Before the war he spent time in London, Berlin and Paris. After working first as an interior designer, he beganto paint around 1928. He destroyed most of his early works but emerged in 1945 as a major force with his Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. He soon secured a reputation as one of the most important artists of his generation. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale 1954 and had retrospective exhibitions at the Tate Gallery in 1962 and 1985, the Grand Palais, Paris, in 1971 and the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1989.

Francis Bacon, Triptych, In Memory of George Dyer, 1971, Fondation Beyler, Basel.