'

STUDY OF THE HUMAN BODY' FRANCIS BACON 1981-1982

OIL AND PASTEL ON CANVAS 198 X 147.5 CM POMPIDOU CENTRE, PARIS.

Although he received no formal art training, he created a sensation in 1945 when he exhibited his 'Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion' (London, Tate Gallery) at the Lefevre Gallery in London. His work was Expressionist in style, and his distorted human forms were unsettling. There is a powerful subversive element in his compositions with much of his chosen subject matter searingly autobiographical. These often dealt with his own homosexuality, his intimate and often anguished relationships, and his own uneasy association with the world in general. Bacon generally restricted himself to a limited range of colours with black and red predominating. The figurative compositions, however widely interpreted, meant that Bacon resisted abstraction, drawing for ideas on artists as diverse as Valesquez, Van Gogh and Picasso, often for their bold, confrontational choice of subject matter. In his tribute to Bacon after the artist's death, Grey Gore, later a respected Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, described Bacon as "the greatest British painter since Turner," a view endorsed by many critics, artists and writers.