Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon’s work has a strength and vitality to it that reinforces his position as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. The violent intensity with which his paintings give expression to the existential angst of his fellow human beings is virtually without parallel in the history of the art. Bacon’s work (1909-1992) undoubtedly includes some of the most extraordinary and powerful paintings in modern art, reflecting the isolation and terror of the human condition, conveyed through the distortion of features and the nude body. This volume comprises Bacon’s series of portraits and self-portraits, the weirdly beautiful yet terrifying variations of Velázquez’s Pope Innocent X, the painfully moving Crucifixion, the enigmatic figure studies and twelve gatefolds of the powerful triptychs. The 240 paintings were selected by the artist himself, and he was closely involved with every aspect of their reproduction in this monograph.