British and Irish Art

Adrian Clark Art Commentator and Historian

Tag: Francis Bacon

  • Revisions: Francis Bacon in the act of painting

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    Martin Harrison and Sophie Pretorius, the Estate of Francis Bacon Publishing, supported by Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation Monaco, in association with Thames & Hudson, London, 2024. ISBN: 978-0-500-96628-0. 167 pages, profusely illustrated. Hardback. £50. Review by Adrian Clark, November 2024. This beautiful book has been bound in the same way, with the same page…

  • Francis Bacon. Catalogue Raisonné.

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    Beautifully and meticulously produced, these five volumes are a magnificent work. Martin Harrison and Rebecca Daniels have laboured for many years to produce them: the result is surely a model of what a dedicated team can do if given sufficient time and resources. High quality catalogues of this type underpin the ability of scholars to…

  • Francis Bacon’s correspondence with Sir Colin Anderson

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    Published in The British Art Journal Vol. VIII, No. 1 (Summer 2007) Francis Bacon is not known to have written many letters – or, at least, not many letters from him have been published.  The most significant group which has recently published in full1 consists of the nine letters which he wrote to Graham Sutherland…

  • Queer British Art at the Tate and Queer Saint

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    The new show opening at Tate Britain to mark 50 years since the relaxation of the laws relating to homosexuality folowing the Wolfenden Report inevitably brings to mind the great supporter of gay artists in the 1940s and 1950s, Peter Watson. Watson only really started to focus on British art when he was forced to…

  • Rina Arya. “Francis Bacon. Painting in a Godless World”

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    Not all writers about Bacon have been able to write so clearly. But the interpretation of Bacon’s paintings is not a task where “success” is possible. The task facing the author of trying to analyse works created intuitively was never going to be easy. As ever with a great artist, we are left with the…

  • Peter Watson and Horizon

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    On 1st February 2013 I gave a lecture at the Sotheby’s Institute in Bedford Square, under the auspices of the Burlington Magazine, about the art contributions to Horizon. This is a very brief synopsis. A transcript of my lecture is available on request. Founded at the end of 1939, Horizon was funded by Watson. The…

  • Peter Watson and Francis Bacon

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    As work on Watson’s biography continues, one thing which is becoming apparent is the importance to Bacon at certain points in the development of his reputation of his link with Peter Watson. It is unknown when they actually met. They moved in the same part of the London art world and may well have met…

  • British art in America

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    Back from New York and Minneapolis. In MOMA saw various Francis Bacon’s: a 1991 triptych, which must have been one of his last pictures; a Pope; and Study of a Baboon from 1953. The latter came from James Thrall Soby. I have come across him in the context of my Peter Watson research, as correspondence…

  • Vienna

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    Just back from Vienna where we saw a Henry Moore sculpture called Hill Arches in the Karlsplatz outside the Karlskirche and a Francis Bacon (Seated Figure of 1960) in the Albertina. Otherwise we were conscious that we were in the City where Cecil Beaton met Watson for the first time in the Summer of 1930.

  • Exhibitions in 2012

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    Diary starting to fill with next year’s stuff. John Piper will be having more publicity. “John Piper and the Church” is going to be at Dorchester Abbey from 21st April to 10th June. “John Piper:the Gyselynck Collection” will be at the River and Rowing Museum, Henley from 3rd March to 8th October and “John Piper:…

  • Graham Sutherland. Landscapes, War Scenes, Portraits 1924-1950; Bacon and Sutherland; Francis Bacon’s Studio

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    Graham Sutherland. Landscapes, War Scenes, Portraits 1924-1950 by Martin Hammer, Scala, 2005, ISBN 185759404 5Bacon and Sutherland by Martin Hammer, Yale University Press, 2005, £25. ISBN 0-300-10906-7Francis Bacon’s Studio by Margarita Cappock, Merrell, 2005, £35. ISBN 1 85894 276 4Published in the British Art Journal, VI, 3, Winter 2005 The Sutherland book accompanied an exhibition…

  • Review of 2009/10 Auerbach and Bacon exhibitions/books

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    Catalogue for Frank Auerbach London Building Sites‘Frank Auerbach. London Building Sites 1952-1962’Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, 16 October 2009-17 January 2010. Accompanying catalogue with essays by Barnaby Wright, Margaret Garlake and Paul Moorhouse, London 2009 ISBN 978-1-90347-094-7Frank AuerbachWilliam Feaver, New York 2009 ISBN 978-0-8478-3058-9‘Francis Bacon. A terrible beauty’The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, 28 October 2009-7 March…