Francis Bacon - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 20, 2016 | Phillips

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 21 January 2016 2pm & 6pm

  • Literature

    Bruno Sabatier 4
    Alexandre Tacou 13

  • 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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141

Francis Bacon

Triptych: right panel

1981
Etching and aquatint in colours, from the set of three on Guarro paper, with full margins,
I. 38.8 x 29.4 cm (15 1/4 x 11 5/8 in.)
S. 64.5 x 50 cm (25 3/8 x 19 5/8 in.)
signed and annotated 'H.C. 2/15' (an hors commerce impression aside from the edition of 99 and 15 artist's proofs), published by Polígrafa, Barcelona, unframed.

Estimate
£3,500 - 4,500 ‡♠

Sold for £4,000

Contact Specialist
Robert Kennan
Head of Sale, Editions
London
+44 207 318 4075

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 21 January 2016 2pm & 6pm