Francis Bacon
British-Irish·1909–1992
F
Francis Bacon
British-Irish
1909–1992
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was an Irish-born British painter known for his raw, disturbing figurative work. Self-taught, he drifted through London and Berlin in the 1920s before committing to painting in his early thirties. His breakthrough came in 1944 with Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which shocked wartime London with its distorted, screaming figures.
Bacon drew inspiration from Old Masters like Velazquez and Rembrandt, but filtered their compositions through a lens of violence and psychological intensity. His Screaming Popes series, based on Velazquez's portrait of Innocent X, became some of the most recognizable images in modern art. Three Studies of Lucian Freud sold for $142.4 million in 2013. Our collection includes 4 works by Bacon.
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Notable Works by Francis Bacon
4 paintings catalogued with museum locations
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1 museum displays Bacon's works. Click any museum to see visiting info and the specific works they hold.
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About Francis Bacon
Bacon is known for violently distorted figurative paintings that explore isolation, mortality, and raw human emotion. His screaming popes, twisted self-portraits, and triptychs are among the most powerful images in 20th-century art.
The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin has his reconstructed studio. Major paintings hang at Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, MoMA in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Yes. Bacon had no formal art training. He began painting in his late twenties after seeing a Picasso exhibition in Paris. He destroyed much of his early work, and didn't gain recognition until his mid-thirties.
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