Francis Bacon - Modern & Contemporary Editions New York Sunday, November 21, 2010 | Phillips

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  • 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.

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349

Three Studies for a Self-Portrait

1981
Thre lithographs in colors, on one sheet of Arches paper, with full margins,
overall I. 12 3/4 x 36 3/4 in. (32.4 x 93.3 cm);
S. 18 5/8 x 40 3/4 in. (47.3 x 103.5 cm)

signed and numbered 149/150 in pencil (there were also 10 artist's proofs and a special edition of 25 in Roman numerals), published by Editions de la Différence, Paris, occasional minor soiling and soft rubbing in the margins (particularly upper left corner), the palest time staining, otherwise in very good condition, framed.

Estimate
$12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for $21,250

Modern & Contemporary Editions

21 Nov 2010
New York