Francis Bacon - Editions New York Tuesday, June 8, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Catalogue Essay

    This work is based on the 1971 triptych in the Kunsthaus Museum, Zurich.

  • 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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82

Three Studies of the Male Back

1987
The complete set of three lithographs in colors, on Arches paper, with full margins,
all I. 23 7/8 x 17 3/4 in. (60.6 x 45.1 cm);
all S. 31 3/4 x 23 1/4 in. (80.6 x 59.1 cm)

all signed and annotated `EA' in pencil (one of 25 aritst's proofs, there were also 15 unnumbered hors commerce, the edition was 99), published by Arts International, Paris, occasional very minor soiling in the margins, the palest time staining, otherwise all in very good condition, all unramed.

Estimate
$18,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $20,000

Editions

8 June 2010
New York