Francis Bacon - Evening & Day Editions New York Tuesday, October 28, 2014 | Phillips
  • Literature

    Bruno Sabatier 6

  • 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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188

Untitled (Leon Trotsky, right panel), from Triptych 1986–1987

1987
Etching and aquatint in colors, on Arches paper, with full margins,
I. 25 3/4 x 19 1/4 in. (65.4 x 48.9 cm)
S. 35 1/4 x 24 5/8 in. (89.5 x 62.5 cm)

signed and numbered 74/99 in pencil (there were also 15 artist's proofs), published by Poligrafa, Barcelona, framed.

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $6,250

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Evening & Day Editions

New York Auction 28 October 2014 11am & 5:30pm