Francis Bacon

Irish-born English painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) created work that remains unmatched in raw force and vitality, and he is widely considered one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. Critic Ronald Jones has described his themes as "the howling subjects with which Bacon struggled--Existentialism, Abstract Expressionism and the primal drama of a world newly acquainted with the Bomb." Bacon was preoccupied with probing the isolation and terror of the human condition, which he chiefly conveyed through a labored distortion of the human body. As Sam Hunter--who penned one of the first major essays on Bacon in 1950--writes in his introductory essay to this volume, "what has become increasingly clear with the test of time...is the clarity, durability and powerful authority of his visual discourse." This concise monograph presents an in-depth survey of Bacon's entire oeuvre.

British artist Francis Bacon is one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. His canvases of the 1940s bore witness to the traumatized psychology of the time and bestowed upon him a prominence that did not diminish in the course of his 50-year career. Recent auction sales have confirmed his works as some of the most sought-after of the Modern era.