Three Studies of Lucian Freud

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Three Studies of Lucian Freud
Three Studies of Lucian Freud.jpg
Artist Francis Bacon
Year1969 (1969)
Medium Oil on canvas [1]
Subject Lucian Freud
Dimensions198 cm× 147.5 cm(78 in× 58 in);for each canvas
LocationPrivate collection
Owner Elaine Wynn [2]

Three Studies of Lucian Freud is a 1969 oil-on-canvas [1] triptych by the Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon, depicting artist Lucian Freud. It was sold in November 2013 for US$ 142.4 million, which at the time was the highest price attained at auction for a work of art when not factoring in inflation. That record was surpassed in May 2015 by Version O of Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger series. [3]

Contents

Background

Bacon and Freud were friends but artistic rivals. [4] Introduced in 1945 by artist Graham Sutherland, they swiftly became close friends who met frequently. The two artists painted each other several times, starting in 1951, when Freud first sat for Bacon. [5] Two full-length triptychs of Freud by Bacon resulted. Three Studies of Lucian Freud is the later of the two; the first one, created in 1966, has not been seen since 1992. [6] They form part of a series of large triptych portraits of Bacon's friends painted in the 1960s; other subjects include Isabel Rawsthorne, Muriel Belcher and his (Bacon's) partner George Dyer. [7] Bacon and Freud's friendship ended after an argument in the mid-1970s. [5]

Description

All three panels, in Bacon's typical abstract, distorted, isolated style, [8] show Freud sitting on a cane-bottomed wooden chair within a cage, on a curved mottled-brown surface with a solid orange background. Behind each figure is a headboard of a bed, originating in a set of photographs of Freud by John Deakin which Bacon used as a reference. [1] Michael Peppiatt writes "Trapped here in a series of Baconian cages, a contorted Freud hovers from panel to panel like a coiled spring about to shoot out of the flat, airless picture plane." [9] The central panel portrays the figure face on, in a pose similar to that Bacon used for George Dyer, his lover. Brett Gorvy of Christie's considers the work to represent "a marriage of the incredibly important people in Bacon's life." [10] The three canvases of the triptych are the same size and are each individually framed. [1] The colouring is brighter than is typical of Bacon's works. [11]

Francis Outred of Christie's describes the 1969 triptych as "a true masterpiece" and "an undeniable icon of 20th Century art" which "marks Bacon and Freud's relationship, paying tribute to the creative and emotional kinship between the two artists." [6] Art historian Ben Street describes the work as "not an A-grade Bacon." [5] It was among Bacon's favourites of his works. [6]

History

The triptych was painted in 1969 at the Royal College of Art in London, where Bacon had a large enough studio to work on three adjacent canvases simultaneously. [10] [12] It was first exhibited in 1970 at the Galleria d'Arte Galatea in Turin, and then was included in a retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1971–72. [1] [12] The three panels of the triptych were sold separately in the mid-1970s. [12] Bacon was unhappy that the panels had been split up, writing on a photograph of the left-hand panel that it was "meaningless unless it is united with the other two panels." [6] The panels were held by different collectors until the late 1980s, when one of the original purchasers, a collector from Rome named in some sources as Francesco De Simone Niquesa, reassembled the work. [10] [13] The reassembled triptych was exhibited in the US, at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1999, but the entire work was not exhibited in the UK until October 2013. [6]

On 12 November 2013, the triptych sold for US$ 142.4 million (including the buyer's premium) to Elaine Wynn [2] at Christie's New York auction house, nominally becoming the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction. [4] [5] [12] [13] When inflation is taken into account, a higher price was reached at the same auction house for Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet , which in 1990 sold for $192 million current dollars. Bacon's triptych did surpass the constant dollar record of $119.9 million set by the fourth version of Edvard Munch's The Scream in May 2012. [4] [14] The 2013 sale also represents the highest price paid for a work by a British or Irish artist, beating Bacon's Triptych 1976 , which fetched $86.3 million in May 2008. [4] [13] [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christie's</span> British auction house

Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold US$8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. On 15 November 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, the highest price ever paid for a painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Bacon (artist)</span> Irish-born British figurative painter (1909–1992)

Francis Bacon was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. Rejecting various classifications of his work, Bacon said he strove to render "the brutality of fact." He built up a reputation as one of the giants of contemporary art with his unique style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triptych</span> Artwork divided into three parts

A triptych is a work of art that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works. The middle panel is typically the largest and it is flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of equal-sized panels. The form can also be used for pendant jewelry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Deakin</span> English photographer

John Deakin was an English photographer, best known for his work centred on members of Francis Bacon's Soho inner circle. Bacon based a number of famous paintings on photographs he commissioned from Deakin, including Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, Henrietta Moraes on a Bed and Three Studies of Lucian Freud.

<i>Triptych, May–June 1973</i> 1973 painting by Francis Bacon

Triptych, May–June 1973 is a triptych completed in 1973 by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992). The oil-on-canvas was painted in memory of Bacon's lover George Dyer, who committed suicide on the eve of the artist's retrospective at Paris's Grand Palais on 24 October 1971. The triptych is a portrait of the moments before Dyer's death from an overdose of pills in their hotel room. Bacon was haunted and preoccupied by Dyer's loss for the remaining years of his life and painted many works based on both the actual suicide and the events of its aftermath. He admitted to friends that he never fully recovered, describing the 1973 triptych as an exorcism of his feelings of loss and guilt.

<i>Benefits Supervisor Sleeping</i> 1995 painting by Lucian Freud

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<i>Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86</i> Painting by Francis Bacon

Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86 is a triptych painted between 1985 and 1986 by the Irish-born English artist Francis Bacon. It is a brutally honest examination of the effect of age and time on the human body and spirit and was painted in the aftermath of the deaths of many of his close friends. It is Bacon's only full-length self-portrait, and was described by art critic David Sylvester as "grand, stark, ascetic".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triptychs by Francis Bacon</span> Series of paintings made between 1944 and 1986

The Irish-born artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992) painted 28 known triptychs between 1944 and 1986. He began to work in the format in the mid-1940s with a number of smaller formats before graduating in 1962 to large examples. He followed the larger style for 30 years, although he painted a number of smaller triptychs of friend's heads, and after the death of his former lover George Dyer in 1971, the three Black Triptychs.

<i>Nude, Green Leaves and Bust</i> 1932 painting by Pablo Picasso

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<i>Head VI</i> Painting by Francis Bacon

Head VI is an oil-on-canvas painting by Irish-born figurative artist Francis Bacon, the last of six panels making up his "1949 Head" series. It shows a bust view of a single figure, modeled on Diego Velázquez's Portrait of Innocent X. Bacon applies forceful, expressive brush strokes, and places the figure within a glass cage structure, behind curtain-like drapery. This gives the effect of a man trapped and suffocated by his surroundings, screaming into an airless void. But with an inverted pathos is derived from the ambiguity of the pope's horrifying expression—whose distorted face either screams of untethered hatred towards the viewer or pleads for help from the glass cage—the question of what he is screaming about is left to the audience.

<i>Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho</i> 1967 painting by Francis Bacon

Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho is a 1967 oil-on-canvas painting by the Irish-born English figurative artist Francis Bacon, housed in the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Described by art critic John Russell as one of Bacon's finest works, it depicts Isabel Rawsthorne, the painter, designer and occasional model for artists such as André Derain, Alberto Giacometti and Picasso.

<i>Triptych, 1976</i> Triptych by Francis Bacon

Triptych, 1976 is a large triptych painted by the British artist Francis Bacon in 1976. It comprises three oil and pastel paintings on canvas. It is the second most expensive Bacon ever sold, after Three Studies of Lucian Freud, being auctioned for US$86 million in 2008.

<i>Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes</i> 1963 painting by Francis Bacon

Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes is an oil-on-canvas 1963 triptych by the Irish-born British figurative painter Francis Bacon. It is one of a series of portraits he painted of his friends, at a time when his art was becoming more personal. Henrietta Moraes (1933–1999) was a close friend and drinking companion of Bacon's from the early 1960s, and became one of his favourite models. She never posed in person for him; instead he worked either from memory, or more often from photographs commissioned from his friend John Deakin.

<i>Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe</i> 1968 painting by Francis Bacon

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<i>Three Studies for a Portrait of Muriel Belcher</i> 1966 painting by Francis Bacon

Three Studies for a portrait of Muriel Belcher is an oil-on-canvas triptych painting by the Irish born English artist Francis Bacon, completed in 1966. It portrays Muriel Belcher, described by musician George Melly as a "benevolent witch", and the charismatic founder and proprietress of The Colony Room Club, a private drinking house at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, where Bacon was a regular throughout the late 1940s to late 1960s. The two became friends soon after she opened the club in 1948, and Bacon helped her cultivate its reputation as a seedy but convivial meeting place for artists, writers, musicians, homosexuals and bohemians. At its height, regular patrons included Lucian Freud, Jeffrey Bernard, John Deakin and Henrietta Moraes.

<i>Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus</i> Triptych by Francis Bacon

Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus is a 1981 oil-on-canvas triptych painting by Francis Bacon. It is one of 28 large triptych paintings by Bacon, each comprising three oil on canvas panels which measure 198 cm × 147.5 cm.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Release: Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud an Icon of Twentieth Century Painting". Christie's. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  2. 1 2 ""Tax Break Flap Over Painting Dogs" Elaine Wynn". Reviewjournal.com. 18 April 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  3. ↑ "Picasso's Women of Algiers smashes auction record". BBC . 11 May 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Vogel, Carol (12 November 2013). "At $142.4 Million, Triptych Is the Most Expensive Artwork Ever Sold at an Auction". The New York Times . Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Sherwin, Adam (13 November 2013). "When Lucian met Francis: Relationship that spawned most expensive painting ever sold" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Bacon painting of Freud expected to fetch $85m (£53m)". BBC. 10 October 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  7. ↑ Hyman, J. "Bacon, Francis (1909–1992)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed 14 November 2013) (subscription required)
  8. ↑ "Francis Bacon Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works". The Art Story. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  9. ↑ Peppiatt M. "Francis Bacon: Three Studies of Lucian Freud", Caravaggio/Bacon, 2010 (quoted in )
  10. 1 2 3 Crow, Kelly (7 November 2013). "Bringing Home the Bacon". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  11. ↑ Jones, Jonathan (12 November 2013). "Why Francis Bacon deserves to beat The Scream's record-breaking pricetag". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Bacon painting fetches record price". BBC. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  13. 1 2 3 Swaine, Jon (13 November 2013). "Francis Bacon triptych smashes art auction record". Telegraph Media Group . Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  14. ↑ Vogel, Carol (2 May 2012). "'The Scream' Is Auctioned for a Record $119.9 Million". The New York Times . Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  15. ↑ Vogel, Carol (15 May 2008). "Bacon Triptych Auctioned for Record $86 Million". The New York Times . Retrieved 13 November 2013.
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