Francis Bacon - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 18, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “What modern man needs is a kind of shorthand - an intelligible compressed language to deal with the complexity of modern reality (which includes the presence of the art of the past)”
    —Francis Bacon 

    Francis Bacon’s monumental triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, on which the present lot Deuxième version du triptyque is based, was first painted in April 1944, slightly more than a year before the end of the Second World War. This iconic oil painting depicts the mythological figures of Furies – three goddesses of vengeance responsible for punishing crimes and restoring justice in ancient Greek mythology. Portrayed as monstrous hybrids of part man and part beast, these distorted, menacing creatures roar in profound silence while struggling in helpless futility. By highlighting their contorted bodies, grotesquely elongated necks, and snarling mouths, the triptych closely mirrors the tumultuous society of its time, powerfully conveying the atrocious brutality of war, the appalling horror of the Holocaust, and the looming threat of nuclear destruction. 

     

    Alongside its format, the triptych also contains visual allusions to the Christian faith, most notably seen in the incorporation of a pedestal in the central panel. Bacon’s appropriation of this loaded Christian iconography only serves to reveal the widespread disillusionment with faith and the growing unattainability of salvation felt in England amidst the Second World War.

     

    Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944. Image © Tate, Artwork © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS 2021.
    Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944.
    Image: © Tate, Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS 2022

    In Bacon’s later reiteration of the subject, the spatially ambiguous, painterly background of cadmium orange transforms into an increasingly structured surrounding dominated by saturated areas of blood red. As more space is created around these tormented creatures, thereby plunging them into a deeper void, the palpable anguish of the earlier version gives way to a more chilling and everlasting impression of isolation and imprisonment. While characterised by a greater sense of compositional clarity with the use of stronger lines and smoother textures, Deuxième version du triptyque nevertheless poignantly speaks to the perpetual and shared human condition of existential angst, even within the seemingly orderly modern world. 

    • Provenance

      Bloomsbury Auctions, London, Modern & Contemporary Prints, 11 Dec 2013, lot 122
      Acquired from the above sale by the present owner

    • Literature

      Bruno Sabatier 24
      Alexandre Tacou 25

    • 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

Property from a Private London Collection

19

Deuxième version du triptyque 1944 (after, Second Version of the Triptych, 1944) (S. 24, T. 25)

1989
The complete set of three lithographs in colours, on Arches Infinity paper, with full margins.
all I. 62.5 x 46.4 cm (24 5/8 x 18 1/4 in.)
all S. 75.5 x 56.1 cm (29 3/4 x 22 1/8 in.)

All signed and annotated 'E.A.' in pencil (one of 8 artist proof sets, the edition was 60), published by Michel Archimbaud for the Librairie Séguier for IRCAM Centre Pompidou, Paris, all framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£15,000 - 20,000 

Sold for £20,160

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Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 18 - 19 January 2023