The Bottom Line
Pros
- A rare opportunity to see an array of this prominent 20th Century artist's paintings.
- Arranged chronologically, so you can see how his work developed and changed.
- Includes an archive room with material from Bacon's studio.
Cons
- Over-crowded in places, so don't frustrate yourself by trying to see all the paintings sequentially.
- If you find Bacon's painting disturbing at postcard size, be prepared for them being huge canvases.
Description
- Exhibition held at the Tate Britain in London from 11 September 2008 to 4 January 2009.
- Admission fee was £12.50. (£10.50 concessions). Audio guide to exhibition £3.50.
- Tate Museum exhibition website
- Exhibition catalog available in hardback and paperback formats.
- Exhibit travelled to Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (3 Feb-19 April 2009) and Metropolitan Museum, NY (20 May-16 Aug 2009).
Guide Review - Exhibition Review: Francis Bacon at Tate Britain
As a good exhibition should, the Francis Bacon retrospective at the Tate Britain gallery in London overcame my preconceptions and expanded my artistic horizons. While Bacon is unlikely to ever be on my Top 50 list of favorite artists, I left with a greater understanding for his paintings.
Admittedly the room I enjoyed most in the exhibition was Room 6, the Archive, with material from his studio. But it was fascinating being able to observe how he applied paint (many studies have large areas of unpainted canvas, just the main subject worked on), to see the definite shift towards more vibrant colors and thicker paint. The sheer size of his paintings is something you don't get from reproductions. The series based on a self-portrait by Van Gogh (The Painter on the Road to Tarascon) was a surprise and reminder how little I know about Bacon's influences.
The Archive room includes reference photos from magazines, books, and some commissioned by him, written notes about ideas for paintings, oil sketches done on paper, photostrips of Bacon in a photo booth not looking at the camera, overpainted reproductions of his paintings... all sorts of preparatory stuff.
Bacon painted triptychs simply because he "liked the juxtaposition of the images separated on three different canvases". The vertical lines in his paintings, a technique called 'shuttering', merges the foreground and background to hold together the figure and its setting within the picture surface so neither took precedence. He insisted on the spontaneity of his painting. He manipulated reference photos. He expressed visual ideas in words. He had a dark imagination and individual style of expression. These are some of the snippets of info I now have in my brain. It proved to me yet again that exhibitions aren't worthwhile only if you already know you like the art.
