Francis Bacon:The Papal Portraits of 1953 explores the longest series of paintings made by the British artist Francis Bacon. For the first time in history, the exhibition and this accompanying book brought together all eight "Study for Portrait" paintings, as well as the famous "Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X" from 1953. Also included are several other works from the period. An essay by Hugh M. Davies, who has written extensively about Bacon, discusses his influences and sources of imagery for this body of work. Also included is a previously unpublished interview with Bacon that Davies conducted more than 25 years ago that covers a variety of topics. The book, rounded out with a chronology and selected bibliography, marks a major step forward in the study of this vitally important and influential 20th-century master.
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Hugh M. Davies has been the Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, since 1983. A native of South Africa, he completed his doctorate at Princeton University where his dissertation on Francis Bacon was published by Garland Publishing Inc., and he coauthored another book on Bacon in Abbeville Press's Modern Masters Series in 1986.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Important Examination of the Oeuvre of Francis Bacon,
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Francis Bacon: The Papal Portraits of 1953 (Hardcover)
Just when you thought you had every treatise about the edgy painter of confrontational imagery from the brush of Francis Bacon, up pops this well designed and written book on just how this amazing artist approached an image, an idea, and carried that to completion. Written by Bacon scholar Hugh Marlais Davies and including an interview with the artist that to my knowledge finds its first publication in this volume, this small but impressive book served as a catalogue for the exhibition FRANCIS BACON: THE PAPAL PORTRAITS OF 1953 presented by the Museum of Contemporary art of San Diego in La Jolla, California in 2001.
The exhibition, and this accompanying catalogue, was powerful in that it focused on eight studies for the papal series (emphasizing the response to Velasquez' popes) that Bacon painted in three weeks time in 1953. Here is all of the energy and agony, the distillation of Bacon's view of the Church and the Universe, and the opportunity to scrutinize Bacon's technique of drawing to painting that makes these portrait studies so important to artist, scholar and art lover alike. As in the exhibition, the portraits are ordered in a circular fashion in the main hall, and this installation is reproduced well in this volume. Then each portrait study is individually presented with the exceptionally educational essay by Davies. One leaves this books the same way the exhibition impressed the visitors - informed, appalled, fascinated and moved. An important document in the books on the life and works of Francis Bacon. Grady Harp, March 05
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