Irish-born English painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) created work that
remains unmatched in raw force and vitality, and he is widely considered
one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. Critic Ronald
Jones has described his themes as "the howling subjects with which Bacon
struggled--Existentialism, Abstract Expressionism and the primal drama
of a world newly acquainted with the Bomb." Bacon was preoccupied with
probing the isolation and terror of the human condition, which he
chiefly conveyed through a labored distortion of the human body. As Sam
Hunter--who penned one of the first major essays on Bacon in
1950--writes in his introductory essay to this volume, "what has become
increasingly clear with the test of time...is the clarity, durability
and powerful authority of his visual discourse." This concise monograph
presents an in-depth survey of Bacon's entire oeuvre.
British artist Francis Bacon is one of the greatest painters of the
twentieth century. His canvases of the 1940s bore witness to the
traumatized psychology of the time and bestowed upon him a prominence
that did not diminish in the course of his 50-year career. Recent
auction sales have confirmed his works as some of the most sought-after
of the Modern era.
