Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits

From tormented self-images to brutal portrayals of friends and fellow artists, the portraits of Francis Bacon account for one of the most remarkable aspects of the work of this great British painter. His stylistic distortions of classicism and his famous deformations have changed the traditional genre of portraiture more drastically than the work of any other artist of the twentieth century. Originally published on the occasion of a major retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Portraits and Self-Portraits is the first book dedicated to this aspect of his work. Milan Kundera, the famed Czech novelist, provides a perceptive introduction explaining his personal response to Bacon’s work, exploring the paradox that lies in the faithfulness of the distorted images, and likening Bacon’s genius to that of Samuel Beckett, both working at the outer limits of their art. An important essay by art historian France Borel sets Bacon’s works in the context of his life and influences and explains his approach to portraiture. With superb reproductions of more than 130 studies and portraits, including those of Lucian Freud, George Dyer, Mick Jagger, and Isabel Rawsthorne, Portraits and Self-Portraits offers new insight into these radical and disturbing images. Many details are included, revealing for the first time the varied textures of Bacon’s paint surface.