Customer Reviews

Francis Bacon in the 1950s

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This is the catalogue for a traveling exhibition (England and the U.S.) focusing on a crucial decade in Bacon's art, when he really revealed himself as a master, transcending the tradition of figurative painting. Many rarely seen works are illustrated (e.g. the portraits of the Sainsburies, one of the artist's first patrons). The book ends with a review of the letters written by Bacon to his first dealer and to his patrons, moving letters where he often asks for money loans, sometimes in a humble and desperate tone that betrays the mundane behind the genius. A valuable addition to the literature on Bacon.

The shelves in the art section of bookstores, public and private libraries contain many publications about the important 20th Century figurative artist Francis Bacon: one would think there was little left to be said about the bizarre genius who influenced so many artists and thinkers. But this new volume by long admired proponent of Francis Bacon's work and historical significance, Michael Peppiatt, sheds even more light on how Bacon arrived at the point of creating such disturbing and magnificently painted works.

Born in 1909 Francis Bacon did not become a serious artist until the mid 1930s, electing to travel to Berlin and Paris and other magnetic hubs plying his trade as a hustler and effete and along the way making significant statements in the decorative arts and design. Peppiatt takes us from the late 1940s when Bacon's few paintings were of animal life and objects of design elements into the period of the 1950s when he explored the figure, developed his 'caged figure' theme and stretched his portraiture to extremes beyond which few other artists have dared go. It is the combination of history, drawings, previously unpublished reproductions of some paintings, photographs, and a collection of letters Bacon wrote to various people that Peppiatt writes with such mastery of description of Bacon's oeuvre that makes this volume so readable and memorable.

The well designed and produced book served as a catalog for a traveling exhibition of the works described in the book. It is not meant to be a definitive total biography of the artist: Peppiatt's 1996 'Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma' is the primer on the artist's life and work. But it is in closer studies such as this book covers that we discover more of the secrets and motivations that have established Francis Bacon as the important artist he became. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 07

I saw the Bacon's retrospective at the Met this summer and the prints in this monograph are exquisite! As a visual artist, I find that art books with good reproductions are so inspirational.
I suppose one disadvantage is that the work represented in this book is from a more limited time frame. But the paintings reproduced are comprehensive of the 50s and they are incredibly beautiful. Deep, dark portraiture and where there is color, it's always vivid and brilliant. The earlier investigations of the smeared, moving faces, the Popes and the abstracted figures are well documented in this monograph. It's a beautiful book and well worth the price.

There is really not much to the book to be honest. There are about 30 paintings decently reproduced -- all of them very interesting -- but without much commentary except for a few. (Though I quickly discovered Bacon's paintings are fun to psychoanalyze for yourself.) It provided a short interesting biography that I told my mother to read which afterward she stated,"he has a disease for which there is no name..." -- and I agreed. Finally, the book ends with some of Bacon's letters.