Bacon [Hardcover]

Rudy Chiappini (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2008

Published for the exhibition in Milan between March 4th and June 29th, 2008, this catalog offers a selection of approximately sixty works by Bacon. The collection spans his works from his first paintings in the 1930s, which reveal how early he was attracted to a figure’s deformation and ambiguity, to his late triptychs, in which the artist’s existential torment seems to move towards a suffered serenity. This publication includes important contributions from leading international scholars as well as technical information on all the exhibition works. Artworks are gathered from such prestigious museums as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Birmingham Museum, the Sara Hilden Museum in Tampere, the Fondazione Beyeler in Basel, the Museo de Arte Contemporanea in Caracas, the Toyota Municipal Museum in Aichi, and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. The publication also includes a series of documents—drawings, photographs, and works on paper such as collages and retouched photographs—from the Dublin City Gallery.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rudy Chiappini has been director of the Modern Art Museum in Lugano for almost twenty years. In 1993 he was commissioner of the first posthumous exhibition dedicated to Bacon.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Skira (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8861302939
• ISBN-13: 978-8861302938
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 1.3 x 12 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #845,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flesh and chaos are the reality of our existence, September 29, 2008

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Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bacon (Hardcover)

This book is the catalogue for a recent Bacon exhibition held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy.

It is divided into four initial essays, the first studying the force and energy that exhude from Bacon's paintings (the violent presence of the flesh, the obsession with life, "the drama of the existencial experience"), the second dwelling on Bacon's creative process, the sources and references he used (contrary to what was formerly believed and to what the artist wanted us to believe, he left little space to chance in his works), the third focusing on his small portraits as embodiements of Bacon's ideas of what art should be (key words here are "energy" and "force")and the fourth attempting an explanation of what these paintings, through their violence and crudeness, represent (what kind of reality, beyond the mere dissolving image of the human body). This last chapter is buttressed by many quotations from Bacon's famous interviews with David Sylvester where he stresses the crude truth that, above all, the human body is "meat, a river of flesh".

Then comes the main asset of this book: the reproductions of the works. I own more than a dozen books on Bacon and, in my opinion, this one is the best as far as the quality of reproductions is concerned. They are simply outstanding and cannot be more faithful to the originals. All in full color (which is crucial when you are dealing with Bacon, who was one of the greatest colorists in XXth century art)they are also numerous.

The last part of the book is especially interesting in that it focuses on Bacon's studio (faithfully reconstituted at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane in Ireland) and everything that was found in it after his death. Photos of the studio and reproductions of sketches, torn photographs, well-thumbed books and odds and ends that used to strew the studio floor are especially revealing of the importance of what the artist called "the chaos" in his creative process.

A high-quality book which I strongly recommend.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Francis Bacon Anthology, January 9, 2009

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Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bacon (Hardcover)

Francis Bacon remains one of the more fascinating artists of our time, and while many important, elegant, erudite and valuable books have been written about this enigmatic man, this Anthology simply titled BACON, outshines them all. Yes, it is essentially a museum catalogue for a major exhibition in Milan in 2008, but it is far more than a competent catalogue.

There is little about Francis Bacon that has not been addressed in previous books, at times very well indeed, so the reader should not expect to uncover much new imagery here. What makes this book so very impressive is the quality: the four essays investigating Bacon's past, his world views, his personal life, his impact on 20th century art as written by Fabrice Hergott, Christoph Heinrich, Jean Louis Schefer, and editor Rudy Chiappini are immensely readable and learned; the uncovering of the valuable secrets of Bacon's Dublin Studio by Barbara Dawson, the section of works on paper by Luciano Caprile in addition to the chronology constructed by Gaia Regazzoni are stylish and accurate: the quality of reproductions of the paintings in the book are some of the richest four color separation images available.

Many paintings illustrated in this anthology that are less well known to the general public than the famous triptychs and the Pope series, and to see these lesser known works in such vivid color is remarkable. For this reader the collection of drawings and photomontages that served as the nidus for Bacon's imagination and resultant paintings is the best available and these are presented in such a way that Bacon's art is more approachable than other books have attempted. Recommended without reservation, no matter how many other volumes about this important artist are in the library! Grady Harp, January 09

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have Bacon!, January 4, 2012

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Gaston D. Musell "gaston" (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bacon (Hardcover)

This is a very beautifully produced volume on the painter extraordinaire Francis Bacon and something everyone should see. I have owned about 15 art books on this man and his work and this is a fascinating work. The reproductions are excellent and the particular combination of paintings from this show is absolutely absorbing. The different points of view in the texts are very enlightening.