In Camera: Francis Bacon: Photography, Film and the Practice of Painting

“Strikingly produced and limpidly written.”— Library Journal

Francis Bacon famously found inspiration in photographs, film stills, and mass-media imagery. In Camera , a bravura accomplishment of original research, reveals how these new media informed some of Bacon’s most important paintings and triggered turning points in his stylistic development.

Martin Harrison, who was granted privileged and unparalleled access to unpublished material from the archives of the Bacon estate, provides a new under-standing of the thought processes and working methods of the creator of one of the most compelling bodies of work in twentieth-century art. Throughout the book, sharp analysis leads to startling insights into this complex, tortured, and hugely creative artist and into the unique iconography of his art. With the aid of over 270 superb illustrations (200 in color), including a broad range of source images and documents, the book addresses important questions about Bacon’s practice and reassesses key paintings to shed new light on his life and work.