Francis Bacon
Turning Figure

1963
Oil on canvas
198 x 147,5 cm
The Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection
© The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022

It is a street scene. A figure is turning around, looking back at something that remains invisible around the corner of a house; the event is indicated, however, by the eerie stream of a white mass on the pavement. Mysterious though this work may be at first glance, it prompts us to take a closer look. In this context, in particular the view into Bacon’s studio in London’s Reece Mews offers a proverbial look behind the scenes: There, the colourful, ankle-deep chaos of battered books, colour-smeared photographs and newspaper fragments proves itself an overflowing storehouse of information, which has been organised and made available for Bacon research in recent years. Thus, it is possible to trace which books and magazines Bacon owned and read. Even more interestingly, among the pictorial sources are the countless photographs and illustrations that were later incorporated directly into his painting. Among these are magazines like the British Picture Post or catalogues of artists like Michelangelo or Diego Velázquez.