“Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence...tearing away the veils that fact acquires through time,” Francis Bacon remarked in 1986. “Really good artists tear down those veils.”
Bacon pursued figurative painting in the immediate aftermath of World War II, creating powerful, often troubling representations of humans and animals. He forged a singular style, frequently working in series to repeatedly depict abstracted figures in intentionally disorienting, geometric spaces. His subjects were drawn from diverse sources, from Old Master paintings to science books. Bacon said that he strove to show “the brutality of fact” in works that evoke feelings of terror or menace.
Organized by Lydia Mullin, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
