Master of macabre art and former louche Soho character Francis Bacon has a solo exhibition dedicated to him at the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square. ‘Human Presence’ is the first major exhibition of Francis Bacon at the National Portrait Gallery and brings together rarely seen works from private collections around the world. Considered as one of the most outstanding painters of the 20th Century, Bacon was best known as a figurative artist whose haunting portraits were often filled with existential angst. His early works depicting figures screaming or in pain were a reaction to the horrors humanity experienced during World War II.
‘Human Presence’ features Bacon’s renowned triptychs and paintings of ghostly figures, as well as tender and psychologically revealing individual portraits of well-known figures including fellow artist Lucian Freud, Isabel Rawsthorne and Muriel Belcher, proprietor of The Colony Room Club, the infamous Soho drinking den frequented by Bacon and his contemporaries when it opened on Dean Street in the 1940s.
‘Francis Bacon: Human Presence’ features more than 50 works from the 1940s onwards, including self-portraits and large-scale portraits of the artist’s former lovers Peter Lacy and George Dyer. The exhibition is curated thematically and chronologically, commencing with works from the late 1940s and culminating with portraits from the end of his life. Five key phases are featured; Portraits Emerge, Beyond Appearance, Painting from the Masters and Self Portraits.
The exhibition starts with a selection of Bacon’s early post-World War II paintings including Head VI (1949) and Study of the Human Head (1953), artworks depicting anonymous male subjects in a traditional three-quarter-length format against dark backgrounds. The figure featured in Head VI is trapped within a transparent cage, while Study of the Human Head has the appearance of an X-ray with the sitter’s skull and teeth exposed.
Although Bacon didn’t see Velázquez’s Pope Innocent X (1649−50) or Van Gogh’s The Painter on the Road to Tarascon (1888) in person, both paintings inspired him, which was evidenced by books and torn-out references to the images in his studio floor. The exhibition features some paintings inspired by Van Gogh that were a departure from his usual dark images to a more colourful palette.
‘Human Presence’ explores Bacon’s deep connection to portraiture and how he challenged traditional definitions of the genre. The exhibition brings Bacon and his sitters to life in a unique way by juxtaposing paintings with rarely seen portraits and photographs from the NPG’s Collection by leading 20th Century photographers including Arnold Newman, Bill Brandt and Cecil Beaton. The exhibition offers an unprecedented chance to view some of Bacon’s most intimate and personal portraits and gain an insight into his psyche.
Francis Bacon: Human Presence is at the National Portrait Gallery until 19th January 2025.
