Sun 17 Jan 2021 02.00 EST
A year before his death in 1992, Francis Bacon quietly slipped into the Prado in Madrid, discreetly followed by its deputy director, Manuela Mena. There, he spent 90 minutes alone with its collection of Velázquez (it was a Monday, and the museum was closed). What did Mena make of Bacon, who was then 81, and in the habit of using shoe polish to colour his hair? âIâve never seen somebody so gentle,â she said. âHe looked you straight in the eye. He wanted to see who you are. He had⦠this
security in himself.â Bacon lingered longest, she recalled, in front of
“We are born and we die, that’s how it is.” Francis Bacon’s philosophy of life was blunt. “But in between,” he declared, “we give this purposeless existence a meaning by our drives.” Bacon relished
Francis Bacon in his studio, 1967
Credit: Ian Berry/Magnum Photos
It was dark outside but, in the lamplit tobacco clouds of the Colony Room Club in Soho, the proprietor Ian Board, his great swollen nose flushed with anger, had hopped down from his barstool perch by the door and was shouting at Francis Bacon with cries like a dog’s bark, his voice rough as a cheese-grater.
Grabbing an umbrella from the back of the stool, he began to belabour the world’s foremost artist about the shoulders as he edged out of the door into the steep, black well of the stairs down to the street. “You can’t f paint!” yelled Board at Bacon descending the twisting steps, as lobbed ballpoint pens (kept for signing in guests) bounced off his jacket.
“Bacon’s appeal is more than post-war angst and existential despair”
During his lifetime, Francis Bacon actively discouraged accounts of his life and work if they weren’t to his liking. But a seemingly insatiable appetite for details of the artist’s colourful life has led to a tide of publications about him, particularly after his death in 1992.
A new exhibition exploring Bacon’s fascination with animals and flesh was due to open at London’s Royal Academy of Arts this month but has been postponed due to the latest coronavirus lockdown. However, the show’s curator Michael Peppiatt has shared five of his favourite books on Bacon for those wanting to know more about the artist s life and work ahead of the exhibition s eventual opening. Peppiatt was a friend of the artist and has written several books on him, including