Getting to know Francis Bacon through his Portraits and Self-Portraits

In 2020 I journeyed to Paris to see the Francis Bacon show at Centre Pompidou which featured his monumental triptychs. Five years later, I found myself in London to see another superb exhibition on Bacon. This time, the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, entitled Francis Bacon: Human Presence, dwelled on his portraits of friends, fellow artists and lovers and his innumerable self-portraits. This is what I learned.

I think art is an obsession with life and, after all, as we are human beings our greatest obsession is with ourselves. Francis Bacon

Although Bacon never became an abstract painter, his portraits are far from conventional. Often disturbing and horrific, they are more real than academic portraits where we get to see the likeness of the sitter but nothing about their inner turmoil and doubts. Bacon wanted to give us ‘all the pulsations of a person’. He was fascinated with the scream and in the 1940s, Bacon produced a series of screaming men - men in suits and clerical robes, whose status did not help them in the face of the unknown. These figures, set in dark backgrounds, void of any frills and possessions, are placed within a transparent cage. They are not free men but prisoners of their own social status with all its trappings. It is with these works that we can trace the beginning of Bacon’s portraiture.

We nearly always live through screens . . . I sometimes think, when people say my work looks violent, that perhaps I have from time to time been able to clear away one or two of the veils or screens. Francis Bacon

In this painting, entitled Study for a Portrait 1949, the screaming figure, whose wrists are shackled to the armrests, is totally helpless. No one hears his screams. This to me is a psychological study of a man in post World War II western society. Bacon titled many of his works as studies. A study implies that the finished painting will follow but in Bacon’s work, the title of Study takes on a new meaning. Bacon’s understanding of the subject is always partial and it reflects the reality as he sees it at that moment. There is also the realization that a painting or the understanding of a person is never totally complete.

I became obsessed by this painting and I bought photograph after photograph of it. I think really that was my first subject. Francis Bacon on Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X

Francis Bacon was obsessed with Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Although Bacon shortly resided in Rome where the painting is located, he never saw it in person but only through the many reproductions he got his hands on. He reinterpreted Velázquez’s portrait many times over - each time depicting the Pope as terrified, undignified and powerless.

In this painting entitled Head IV 1949 the screaming pope is seated in a barely visible golden throne but no gold can alleviate his terror. His face is half hidden - the upper part is in shadow but you can still make out his terrified eyes. The tassel above his nose implies to me a shade being pulled down.

In addition to Velāzquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, Bacon was influenced by reproductions of Van Gogh’s The Painter on the Road to Tarascon which Bacon reinterpreted in a series of eight paintings.

In Study for Portrait of Van Gogh IV 1957, Bacon is the painter in the canvas, depicting himself as a ‘phantom on the road’ struggling to establish himself as an artist. Self-portraits will become an important part of his portraits output. Other artists he held in high regard were Rembrandt, Degas and his contemporaries, Picasso and Giacometti. 

In Study for Portrait (with Two Owls) 1963, it is obvious that this work is based on the Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Velázquez but I also see the influence of Picasso in the distorted face. If you look carefully, you can see two faces, one more official, just looking ahead, and a second face, withdrawn into its neck with unrestrained emotions. We see the beginning of a scream.

I see the influence of Picasso on Bacon’s work also in Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne 1966 where her lower face is distorted and at a closer look, we can identify a closed mouth and underneath it an open mouth. 

Bacon rarely invited subjects to pose for him in his studio. He found it inhibiting. He preferred to work from photographs, reproductions of Old Masters as in the case of Velàzquez, book illustrations and film stills. In this Study for a Portrait 1952, Bacon used the still from the movie Battleship Potemkin. The scream, the broken glasses, the damaged eye are all present in this work. A new element introduced in this screaming portrait is what looks like café curtains in the background. The tassel is also present in this work.

I couldn’t (paint) people I didn’t know very well . . . It wouldn’t interest me to try to . . . Unless I had seen a lot of them, watched their contours, watched the way they behaved. Francis Bacon

In the 1960s Bacon’s portraits feature a small group of friends and lovers. Done mainly in a triptych format of small dimensions, Bacon often had photographer John Deakin take their photos from which he would work.

Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud 1964 Bacon and artist Lucian Freud met through a mutual acquaintance, artist Graham Sutherland. Their careers progressed on equal footing and they remained close friends for decades, meeting in their respective studios, local restaurants and bars. In the 1980s their friendship came to an abrupt and unexplainable end. The features in this triptych, dominated by red tones, become more obliterated as we move from right to left, and yet, in some way, the panel on the left, which is the most distorted, is the most vivid. 

Three Studies of Muriel Belcher 1966 Muriel Belcher was the owner of the Colony Room, a private members club in SoHo frequented by the people that became known as being part of the post-war British art scene. Not only was Bacon one of the frequent customers, but since he was so outgoing and a social magnet, she offered him 10 pounds a week and free drinks to expand her clientele. The center panel portrays Muriel Belcher, who was known to use vulgar language, in a regal pose.

Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes 1963 Henrietta Moraes and Bacon met at a drinking establishment in Soho in the late 1940s. She became his most frequently used female subject.

Three Studies for Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne 1965 Although the critic David Sylvester chose Isabel Rawsthorne for an exhibition in London of outstanding artists to be held in 1950, she is mainly known as a muse and friend to painters like Bacon. I had already come across this triptych in Venice at Palazzo Loredan during February 2023 and have written a post on it. See the link at the end of this article entitled Three studies for the portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne by Francis Bacon.

Three Studies for Portraits: Isabel Rawsthorne, Lucian Freud and J.H. 1966 Most of Bacon’s portraits in triptych format represent the same figure but in this triptych, each panel represents a different friend: Isabel Rawsthorne on left, Lucian Freud in center and J.H. (Probably his friend John Hewitt) on right. In my opinion, this triptych does not work as well as when all three panels depict the same person. 

Another technic that Bacon used in his self-portraits was to merge his identity with that of his friends. For example, in this Study for Self-portrait 1963 Bacon’s body is taken from a photograph of Lucian Freud.

Again in Study for Self-portrait 1964 Freud’s body is added to Bacon’s face. This symbiosis reflects a respect, admiration and a close relationship between Bacon and Freud.

Bacon's lovers were also the subjects of many of his works. From Peter Lacy, who was Bacon’s lover for over a decade and died of alcoholism to John Edward, a pub owner, who was Francis Bacon’s lover in later life and to whom Bacon left his entire estate, but the lover who had the most impact on his work was George Dyer. Bacon continued to use him in paintings after Dyer’s tragic death from an overdose of drugs and alcohol. Portrait of a Man Walking Down Steps 1972 was painted in memory of George Dyer, a year after his death at Hôtel des Saints - Pères, where he had accompanied Bacon for the opening of his 1971 retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris. With a sense of guilt for not having been there to save him, Bacon became obsessed with making sure Dyer did not become absent from his work.

I’ve done a lot of self-portraits, really because people have been dying around me like flies and I’ve had nobody else to paint but myself. Francis Bacon

Despite the fact that Bacon did not like his own face, he produced a large amount of self-portraits. Let’s look at the self-portraits done toward the later part of his life and featured in this exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. In Study for Self-portrait, 1979 and in Three Studies for a Self-portrait 1980 you can trace the influence of Rembrandt on Bacon’s work. In these works, the figures seem to materialize from a dark background and at the same time they disintegrate back into the dark void. There is no better way to represent the fragility of life. Bacon said he was ‘always surprised when I wake up in the morning.’

In this diptych, Two Studies for Self-portrait 1977 Bacon represents himself as introspective and melancholic. Notice also a trademark of many of his portraits - clear circles that feature a certain part of the face and dark circles that obliterate other parts of the image.

Self-portrait 1972 shows an introspective and mournful Bacon. He had just lost his partner George Dyer to an overdose and this work captures an emptiness in a face reassembled as best as it can be after such tragic loss. Bacon went on to produce another nine self-portraits in the same year. Notice he is wearing a striped shirt which he favored at the time.

In Self-portrait 1973 Bacon takes center stage. The spotlight is on him and we stand ready to hear him explain his art to us and we will listen with interest.