Francis Bacon - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | Phillips

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 9 June 2016

  • Literature

    Bruno Sabatier 5
    Alexandre Tacou 15

  • 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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17

Francis Bacon

Seated Figure (after, Study for a Portrait 1981)

1983
Etching and aquatint in colours, on Guarro paper, with full margins,
I. 72.3 x 53.7 cm (28 1/2 x 21 1/8 in.)
S. 101.6 x 70.6 cm (40 x 27 3/4 in.)
signed and numbered 2/99 in pencil (there were also 99 copies on Arches paper in Roman numerals and 15 artist's proofs for each paper), published by Ediciones Polígrafa, Barcelona, unframed.

Estimate
£10,000 - 15,000 ♠

Sold for £11,250

Contact Specialist
Robert Kennan
Head of Sale
London
+44 207 318 4075

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 9 June 2016