Francis Bacon - Evening & Day Editions London Thursday, September 12, 2019 | Phillips

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  • Literature

    Bruno Sabatier 27
    Alexandre Tacou 29

  • Artist Biography

    Francis Bacon

    Irish-British • 1909 - 1992

    Francis Bacon was a larger-than-life figure during his lifetime and remains one now more than ever. Famous for keeping a messy studio, and even more so for his controversial, celebrated depictions of papal subjects and bullfights, often told in triptychs, Bacon signified the blinding dawn of the Modern era. His signature blurred portraits weren't murky enough to stave off his reputation as highly contentious—his paintings were provocations against social order in the people's eye. But, Bacon often said, "You can't be more horrific than life itself."
     
    In conversation with yet challenging the conventions of Modern art, Bacon was known for his triptychs brutalizing formalist truths, particularly Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which Bacon debuted in London in 1944, and Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which became famous when it set the record for most expensive work of art at auction at the time it sold in 2013.

    View More Works

155

Masque mortuaire de William Blake (after Study of Portrait based on The Life Mask of William Blake, 1955)

1991
Lithograph in colours, on BFK Rives paper, with full margins.
I. 60 x 50.2 cm (23 5/8 x 19 3/4 in.)
S. 80 x 60 cm (31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in.)

Signed and annotated 'E.A.' in pencil (an artist's proof, the edition was 60), published by Michel Archimbaud for the Librairie Séguier, Paris, unframed.

Estimate
£5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for £11,875

Contact Specialist

Robert Kennan
Head of Editions, Europe
+44 207 318 4075

Rebecca Tooby-Desmond
Head of Sale, Specialist
+44 207 318 4079

Anne Schneider-Wilson
Senior Specialist, Editions 
+44 207 318 4042

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 12 September 2019