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Francis Bacon: Revelations

Francis Bacon: Revelations

by Mark Stevens; Annalyn Swan

Knopf ·2021 ·880 pages
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About This Book

Francis Bacon created an indelible image of mankind in modern times, and played an outsized role in both twentieth century art and life--from his public emergence with his legendary Triptych 1944 (its images so unrelievedly awful that people fled the gallery), to his death in Madrid in 1992.Bacon was a witty free spirit and unabashed homosexual at a time when many others remained closeted, and his exploits were as unforgettable as his images. He moved among the worlds of London's Soho and East End, the literary salons of London and Paris, and the homosexual life of Tangier. Through hundreds of interviews, and extensive new research, the authors probe Bacon's childhood in Ireland (he earned his father's lasting disdain because his asthma prevented him from hunting); his increasingly open homosexuality; his early design career--never before explored in detail; the formation of his vision; his early failure as an artist; his uneasy relationship with American abstract art; and his improbable late emergence onto the international stage as one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. In all, Francis Bacon: Revelations gives us a more complete and nuanced--and more international--portrait than ever before of this singularly private, darkly funny, eruptive man and his equally eruptive, extraordinary art. Bacon was not just an influential artist, he helped remake the twentieth-century figure.


Reviews

"Here that doesn't always happen; on the contrary, like one of the blurred figures in his paintings, Bacon seems to be in the process of escaping."

Martin Gayford· The Spectator (UK) Read review ↗ Near the Top

"But where they really triumph is in their sympathetic, psychologically convincing accounts of his love life .."

Rachel Cooke· The Guardian Read review ↗ Near the Top

"The hand that held it was tremulous with fear, desire and drink, and that was his signature."

Dominic Green· The Wall Street Journal Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Bacon, especially as the wild man of Soho, has been thoroughly mythologised, but this authorised life brings the carousing, the paintings and the public and private lives together to form a convincing and often touching whole."

Michael Prodger· The Times (UK) Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Bacon once said that telling his life story "would take a Proust." A tall order — though Stevens and Swan do share a Proustian eye for the social whirl and the encroachments of 'time and the wrecking ball' ..."

Charles Arrowsmith· The Washington Post Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Does the fact that he was interested in abjection, on and off the canvas, preclude him from writing affectionate letters to his mother?"

Parul Sehgal· The New York Times Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

"Their comprehensiveness is particularly instructive when illuminating his years as a commercial furniture and rug designer in the 1930s, a facet of his career that Bacon rarely discussed in public, lest it detract from his reputation as a painter of the macabre ..."

Tausif Noor· The Nation Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"An unflinching portrayal of an often unwieldy character—further proof of Bacon's enduring influence."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"He was an S&M enthusiast who lived with his childhood nanny."

Jeremy Lybarger· The New Republic Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"The women closest to Bacon emerge particularly clearly ..."

James Cahill· Times Literary Supplement Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

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