Customer Reviews

Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads

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FRANCIS BACON: PORTRAITS AND HEADS is a superb catalogue that accompanied an exhibition in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh last summer and unlike most of the Bacon retrospectives, this exhibition focused entirely on the many heads Bacon painted. As other artist come and go Francis Bacon continues to be one of the more 'published' artists of the twentieth century and it is refreshing to see that there are still new things to say about the work of one of the most significant painters in recent years

Included are self portraits, portraits of famous people some of whom actually commissioned portraits while the majority are of friends, lovers, fellow artists, and images from photographs. Bacons small works carry as much power as the large canvases, perhaps that is due to the lack of need to place the figure in a constructed environment or space. Or perhaps when Bacon concentrated on only the head, his probing eye could explore and paint the model's psyche (as well as his own responsive psyche!).

The reproductions are superb, on excellent paper, and given full attention in the catalogue. There are two fine essays in addition to the obligatory Introduction and comments from the curatorial staff. Though most of these paintings can be found in other catalogue raisonnes of Bacon's work, seeing the small head portraits in a single space is a fine idea and one from which we continue to learn about just what made Bacon unique and inimitable! Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, August 06

The catalogue for a 2005 exhibition held at the Scottish National Gallery of Art and at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, this book focuses on a crucial body of works that Bacon painted all throughout his career. Most of these works are small-scale, which means that little is lost of the gripping effect they usually have on first-hand viewers, through reproduction (all the more so as the illustrations are excellent). After an introductory essay that aims at debunking the various clichés that have marked the gradual public acceptance of Bacon's work (the distortion of the human figure as a reflexion of the brutality of our post-war world is one of those clichés)by showing how these portrait reveal the intimacy and innermost personality of the models, the book follows a chronological pattern, grouping the paintings by periods and models (early heads of the 40's and 50's, Men in Blue of 1954, Peter Lacy, George Dyer, Henrietta Moraes, Lucian Freud, Isabel Rawsthorne). A special section is devoted to the self-portraits from 1963 to 1987.

A surprisingly high-quality publication that is one of the few reasonably priced books on Bacon.

I expected something else. In 'Van Gogh and Expressionism' the Bacon images are vibrant and colorful and interesting. They include studies for portraits of Van Gogh as well as self portraits. They look much like the cover of this book. Unfortunately, the only image I liked WAS the cover. Had I looked through this book in a bookstore I would not have purchased. Perhaps i am not much of a Bacon 'fan'. Let that be a lesson to me.....more research in the future before purchasing.