FRANCIS BACON (Dublin, 1909- Madrid, 1992). "Three... Lot 76

FRANCIS BACON (Dublin, 1909- Madrid, 1992). "Three studies for a self-portrait", 1981. Lithograph on Arches paper, copy XXIV/XXV. Signed and justified by hand. Provenance: Joan Prats Gallery, Barcelona. Measurements: 43 x 98 cm; 70 x 26 cm (frame). Both the psychic self-exploration through the portrait and the triptych composition were frequent in Francis Bacon's work. The three faces allude to different moments of mood, emotional turns that are imprinted on the features, deforming them, animalizing them or undoing them with inimitable twists. There are several versions of "Three studies of a self portrait", which the English painter made during the eighties, when he was already a septuagenarian. It is worth mentioning the one sold at Sotheby's in London in 2013 for 16 million euros. Bacon's tormented and heartbreaking expression is unique and unrepeatable in the history of art, an artistic document of post-war Europe, but also the mark of a violent father who wanted to repress his son's homosexuality. For a time he was a misunderstood artist, but today he is one of the most sought-after in the art market. With his work, Bacon transmits his vital condition, undoubtedly linked to a self-destructive tendency, thus managing to express loneliness, violence and degradation with praiseworthy frankness. Born in Dublin, although of English parents, Francis Bacon began in the world of painting in a self-taught way. When he was only 17, back in 1927, the Paul Rosemberg Gallery opened its doors to the painter. There he got to know the work of Pablo Picasso, an artist he would admire throughout his career. Like Picasso, other painters made their mark on Bacon's production: Velázquez (whose version of the work of Pope Innocent X he painted at least 40 "popes") or Nicolas Poussin, whose "The Massacre of the Innocents", a work preserved in the Condé Museum, aroused in him an intense emotion. In 1945 he exhibited in London, together with the English artists Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, his painting Three Studies for Figures at the Foot of a Crucifixion (c. 1944), a triptych which, according to Bacon himself, marked the starting point of his plastic career. By 1945 Bacon had developed his own unmistakable style. In 1949, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MOMA), bought an impressive work of his entitled Painting 1946. In 1956 he was invited to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale alongside Ben Nicholson and Lucian Freud. With his work, Bacon decided that the subject of his paintings would be both life in death and death in life. He sought to express his vital condition, which was also linked to his self-destructive side. Michel Leiris suggested to him that masochism, sadism and other similar manifestations were really just ways of feeling more human. Portraits and self-portraits constitute an important part of Bacon's paintings, among which George Dyer in a Mirror from 1968 stands out, a work where the painter suggests the vulnerability and fragility of the self. Bacon made portraits without poses taken from life, developed from photographs. He portrayed his intimate companions and friends, as well as famous people: Peter Lacy, George Dyer and John Edwards, Henrietta Moraes, Isabel Rawsthorne, Muriel Belcher, Lucian Freud, Peter Beard and Michel Leiris, as well as Hitler, Pius XII and Mick Jagger. Some of his works can be seen in the most important art galleries worldwide, such as the Tate Britain in London (which has one of the most extensive collections of the artist), the MET and the Moma in New York, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia Museum.