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Lot Essay
Composition (Figure), executed in 1933, is an exceptionally rare early work by Francis Bacon, dating from a period from which only a tiny number of other pictures have survived. Already in 1933, the figure is filled with movement and panic, Bacon managing to harness what he termed as the 'human cry', and what he defined as 'The whole coagulation of pain, despair...' (quoted in Daniel Farson, The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon, London 1994, p. 106). This is therefore an existentialist image from before the age of existentialism, and provides an exciting insight both into Bacon's early development and the consistency of his interest in the agony of life.
When Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucufuxion was unleashed upon the world in 1944, people all too easily assumed that the artist had sprung, ready-formed, from nowhere. Yet that picture showed an interest in the organic forms that had been earlier pioneered by Picasso and which had influenced Bacon's paintings over a decade earlier. For Bacon, it was at an exhibition of Picasso's works at Paul Rosenberg's gallery in Paris in the late 1920s that had formed his great epiphany-- he would later tell his cousin Diana Watson, one of his most important early supporters and the first owner of the present picture, 'That's when I first thought about painting' (Bacon, quoted in A. Sinclair, Francis Bacon: His Life & Violent Times, New York 1993, p. 53). He abandoned the furniture design that had previously occupied him and instead became a painter, learning the techniques through his friend and mentor Roy de Maistre.
Bacon had been struck in particular by 'Picasso's brutality of fact' (Bacon, quoted in D. Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon, New York 1990, p. 182). He turned it to his own purposes, adding a rawness that had not featured in Picasso's works. The gestural manner in which Bacon has rendered Composition (Figure) emphasises the 'brutality', lending this work a harsh edge that was lacking in Picasso's Dinard pictures. It is interesting to note that the features of the figure are even reminiscent of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso's lover at the time his Dinard works were painted. In Composition (Figure), there is no sense of illustration; instead Bacon has tapped into a more direct manner of depiction that conveys sensation as well as movement.
Composition (Figure) is one of a small number of works that were exhibited in Bacon's first one-man show, which he held in 1934 following his success in group exhibitions and the publication of his Crucufixion of 1933 in Herbert Read's book, Art Now. Only a handful of other works from this exhibition have survived from his exhibition at the Transition Gallery (a name the artist himself chose). This picture therefore bears intriguing witness both to the early development and the early history of one of the most important painters of the Post-War period.
When Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucufuxion was unleashed upon the world in 1944, people all too easily assumed that the artist had sprung, ready-formed, from nowhere. Yet that picture showed an interest in the organic forms that had been earlier pioneered by Picasso and which had influenced Bacon's paintings over a decade earlier. For Bacon, it was at an exhibition of Picasso's works at Paul Rosenberg's gallery in Paris in the late 1920s that had formed his great epiphany-- he would later tell his cousin Diana Watson, one of his most important early supporters and the first owner of the present picture, 'That's when I first thought about painting' (Bacon, quoted in A. Sinclair, Francis Bacon: His Life & Violent Times, New York 1993, p. 53). He abandoned the furniture design that had previously occupied him and instead became a painter, learning the techniques through his friend and mentor Roy de Maistre.
Bacon had been struck in particular by 'Picasso's brutality of fact' (Bacon, quoted in D. Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon, New York 1990, p. 182). He turned it to his own purposes, adding a rawness that had not featured in Picasso's works. The gestural manner in which Bacon has rendered Composition (Figure) emphasises the 'brutality', lending this work a harsh edge that was lacking in Picasso's Dinard pictures. It is interesting to note that the features of the figure are even reminiscent of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso's lover at the time his Dinard works were painted. In Composition (Figure), there is no sense of illustration; instead Bacon has tapped into a more direct manner of depiction that conveys sensation as well as movement.
Composition (Figure) is one of a small number of works that were exhibited in Bacon's first one-man show, which he held in 1934 following his success in group exhibitions and the publication of his Crucufixion of 1933 in Herbert Read's book, Art Now. Only a handful of other works from this exhibition have survived from his exhibition at the Transition Gallery (a name the artist himself chose). This picture therefore bears intriguing witness both to the early development and the early history of one of the most important painters of the Post-War period.