Francis Bacon - 20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning Session New York Tuesday, December 8, 2020 | Phillips

20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning...

New York 8 December 2020

  • Provenance

    Mac Robertson (gifted by the artist)
    Ewbank's, Woking, April 24, 2007, lot 2038
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

  • Artist Biography

    Francis Bacon

    Irish-British • 1909 - 1992

    Francis Bacon was a larger-than-life figure during his lifetime and remains one now more than ever. Famous for keeping a messy studio, and even more so for his controversial, celebrated depictions of papal subjects and bullfights, often told in triptychs, Bacon signified the blinding dawn of the Modern era. His signature blurred portraits weren't murky enough to stave off his reputation as highly contentious—his paintings were provocations against social order in the people's eye. But, Bacon often said, "You can't be more horrific than life itself."
     
    In conversation with yet challenging the conventions of Modern art, Bacon was known for his triptychs brutalizing formalist truths, particularly Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which Bacon debuted in London in 1944, and Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which became famous when it set the record for most expensive work of art at auction at the time it sold in 2013.

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203

Francis Bacon

Untitled (Figure upside down on sofa)

inscribed “Figure upside down on sofa; seen from distance as in crouching figure” upper center; further inscribed “April 12 standing figure, seated figure, lying figure from Muybridge” on the reverse
oil on canvas
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
Painted circa 1957-1961.

The authenticity of this work was confirmed by Martin Harrison, author of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné.

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $157,500

Contact Specialist

John McCord
Head of Day Sale, Morning Session
New York
+1 212 940 1261

jmccord@phillips.com

20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning Session

New York 8 December 2020