Irish Arts Review

Francis Bacon: A Terrible BeautyAuthor(s): Barbara DawsonSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 2009), pp. 74-75Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40421248 .

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Francis Bacon: A Terrible Barbara Dawson promises exciting new discoveries about Francis Bacon's technique when his

centenary exhibition opens this autumn at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

1 FRANCIS BACON, HEAD OF A WOMAN, 1960, oil on canvas 84x67.5cm. On loan to Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane from a private collection ©The Estate of Francis Bacon / DACS, London 2009

% I I rancis Bacon: A Terrible Beauty' celebrates the centenary of the I- | artist's birth in Dublin in 1909. The title of the exhibition is

_L taken from W B Yeats' poem Easter 1916. 'All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born' was to become a 20th-century avant-

garde chant. 'Francis Bacon: A Terrible Beauty' which opens in Dublin

City Gallery The Hugh Lane this autumn, is singular in the canon of Bacon exhibitions. For the first time since the Hugh Lane team relocated and archived Bacon's Studio the wealth of material in all its categories will be shown alongside his finished paintings. Many of the paintings have not been seen publicly for several decades.

The juxtaposition of the studio material (Fig 3) with the paintings presents opportunities to evaluate the position these small and some- times seemingly insignificant items played in Bacon's creative process. Torn, creased, pinned together and often overpainted, the material is

multilayered in meaning. Their decaying state was also important for the artist. Fragile and old, their transformation as they moved towards

decrepitude took on another

significance. This mutation was

important for Bacon. The works on their own had a particular significance, but when put together meant something entirely different. They are con-

stantly changing like shuffling the figures in a pack of cards. This surrealist 'exquisite corpse' connection between objects had an enduring fascination for Bacon as our excavations reveal.

Over a hundred slashed can- vases were found in various states

of completion, and these have been scientifically examined beneath the surface by our Head of Conservation, Joanna Shepard. This has revealed

important new discoveries about Bacon's innovative techniques and how he developed his unique approach to composition. The slashed and aban- doned canvases show what a critical editor Bacon was of his own work.

Scholarly analysis of the studio material published in the accompa- nying catalogue investigates the motives and methods behind the cre- ation of Francis Bacon's paintings. These revelations reset a lot of

questions, this time based on fact rather than myth and legend, yet this does not lessen the mystery of how the paintings look the way they do.

3 Leaf torn from book, Kurt Lange, König Echnaton und die Amarna-Zeit, Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliches Lichtbild, Munich, 1951, showing black and white photographic plate of an Egyptian mask. Collection Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane ©The Estate of Francis Bacon

k UNTITLED (JOHN EDWARDS!, }9U oil on canvas, 35.5x30.5 cm. Private collection London, courtesy of Faggionato Fine Arts, London. ©The Estate of Francis Bacon / DACS, London 2009

74 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2009

2 STUDY FOR FIGURE VI, 1957, oil on canvas 1 52.5x11 9cm. Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums. ©The Estate of Francis Bacon / DACS, London 2009

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Beauty

BACON CENTENARY FRANCIS BACON: A TERRIBLE BEAUTY

It is the second exhibition organised by the Hugh Lane which reveals new insights into the artist's work. In 2000, 'Francis Bacon in Dublin' curated by David Sylvester was organised in acknowledgement of the donation of the artist's studio to Dublin by John Edwards and Brian Clarke. It included recently discovered paintings which were believed to have been destroyed by the artist. Such discoveries necessitated a re- evaluation of the artist and his practice. During the course of that exhi- bition the Hugh Lane team continued their work on Bacon's archive, cataloguing and compiling a database of the 7,000 items they had

archaeologically excavated from the studio while in situ in London.

Relocating and archiving the studio took four years in total to com-

plete. When it opened to the public in Dublin in 2001, an impressive bank of information illuminating Bacon's particular processes and con- cerns was revealed. It is the only contribution beyond interpretation to the Bacon creed and is now central to scholarly research on the artist.

The multitude of studio material exhibited in this exhibition, sup- ported by new research, indicates that we are still in the primary stages of investigation. The discoveries show the more that is revealed the

THE MULTITUDE OF STUDIO MATERIAL EXHIBITED IN THIS EXHIBITION, SUPPORTED BY NEW RESEARCH, INDICATES THAT WE ARE STILL IN THE PRIMARY STAGES OF INVESTIGATION

greater the desire to investigate. The paintings have been selected for their excellence in the artist's oeuvre and for their illumination of the material that instigated their creation.

London was home for the artist, but Bacon drew on all things that affected him and his early life in Ireland played its part. 'The thing I

appreciate from Ireland is the kind of freedom of life.' Disentangling myth from fact is an ongoing process with Francis Bacon. Conversations with his sister Ianthe Knott both in her home in South Africa and on her visits to Dublin where always enlightening. She once burst out laughing when I asked about the truth of a certain story exclaiming 'Did Francis

say that? He was a real Irishman in that he'd never spoil a good story for the sake of the truth!'

Despite him saying he never returned to Ireland once he left the fam-

ily home, she remembered him visiting them in Letterfrack in Co

Galway where the family took a hunting lodge for the shooting season. She believed he preferred to visit them in the West. Because of the bad

asthma attacks he had experienced as a child at home in Kildare induced

by horses and made worse by the feather beds into which he was iron-

ically bundled to 'recover' from the asthma. Her contributions by way of conversations and recollections of her childhood and teenage years, and donations, have further enhanced the Gallery's archive.

Francis Bacon's famous studio is now in Dublin. Such are the vicis- situdes of fate. Its geographical location cannot be ignored any more than its potential as a font of information on the artist. With the pas- sage of time, it is the only addition beyond interpretation to Bacon studies. Without acknowledging this font no new interpretation is credible. 'Francis Bacon: A Terrible Beauty' acknowledges his contribu- tion to the history of European painting, his centenary and his contin-

uing association with Ireland. ■ 'Francis Bacon: A Terrible Beauty' Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin 28 October 2009 - 7 March 2010. BARBARA DAWSON is Director of Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

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