Artist | Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992)

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    • Francis Bacon

      Nude1960

Biography

Biography

born 1909

About the work (english / deutsch)

About the work (english / deutsch)

Nude
Francis Bacon (1909-1991) formulated an artistic idiom clearly aimed at the human existential situation. After an early phase when he was influenced by the Surrealists, in the mid-Forties Bacon developed a structural framework for his painting based on insertion of the human figure into a indeterminate spatial system. The objects and figures in his picture are determined by dynamic brushstrokes, but are always outlined with clear contours. To this extent, Bacon is not interested in painting over motifs and achieving a certain painterly expression in the picture, but rathbr in the artistic concentration of a person's feelings, emotions, fears or moods in the bodily expression of the particular figure. Bacon's expressive mode of painting does not float into a painting but into a figure. Through his painting he fills this figure with moments of a 'floating reality' (Francis Bacon).
Nude, which Bacon painted in 1960, is one of the few pictures of a female figure in his entire oeuvre. We see a female figure tumed towards us, she is naked and seated on a large brown chair, her arms behind her head. Although at first glance Bacon's figure is comparable with de Kooning's female nude, a more careful examination reveals that the woman also painted in luminous pink, with her provocative position, her erotic opulent, soft rounded body and her pointedly emphasized breast immediately engages the viewer in an emotional dialogue that is hard to escape, Her entire body exudes a strong sensuality, to which the remaining painting is subordinate. The blurred, indeed distorted, physiognomy, with aggressively open mouth and bared teeth, inevitably triggers feelings of fear and transforms the erotic female aura into a direct and existential threat to the male gender.


Nude
Francis Bacon formuliert mit seinen Arbeiten eine deutlich auf die existentielle Situation des Menschen Bezug nehmende bildnerische Sprache. Die Gegenstände und Figuren, die seit Mitte der vierziger Jahre zunehmend in ein nicht näher bestimmtes Raumsystem eingebunden sind, werden von einer dynamischen Pinselführung bestimmt, dabei jedoch stets mit klaren Konturen zusammengefaßt. Insofern geht es Bacon nicht um das 'Vermalen' von Motiven und darum einen bestimmten malerischen Ausdruck im Bild zu erreichen, sondern vielmehr um die bildnerische Konzentration von Gefühlen, Emotionen, Ängsten oder Stimmungen eines Menschen im Körperausdruck einer Gestaltung. Bacons expressive Malweise fließt somit nicht in ein Bild, sondern in eine Figur ein. Diese erfüllt er durch seine Malerei mit Momenten der "fließenden Wirklichkeit" (Francis Bacon).
Das Bild Nude, von 1960, das eine der wenigen Frauenfiguren in seinem Werk darstellt, zeigt eine dem Betrachter zugewandte, nackte und auf einem großen braunen Sessel sitzende Frauenfigur, die ihre Arme hinter dem Kopf verschränkt hat. Ist Bacons Figur auf den ersten Blick mit de Koonings Frauenakt vergleichbar, so fällt bei genauerer Betrachtung auf, daß der ebenfalls in leuchtendem Rosa gemalte Frauenkörper durch seine provozierende Pose, seinen erotisch-fülligen, weich gerundeten Körper und seine pointiert hervorgehobene Brust zum Betrachter einen emotionalen Dialog aufbaut, dem er sich kaum entziehen kann. Die stark vermischte und verzerrte Physiognomie des Gesichtes mit dem aggressiv geöffneten Mund und den gebleckten Zähnen weckt im männlichen Betrachter zwangsläufig Gefühle der Angst und des Abscheus; die sinnliche Ausstrahlung des weiblichen Körpers wird zur unmittelbaren und existentiellen Bedrohung.


German text by Rolf Lauter / Translation by Jeremy Gaines
(Extract - Full printed version available in the Museum)
MMK - Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main

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Exhibition History 

Exhibition History

 
SUMMARY based on artist-info records. More details and Visualizing Art Networks on demand.
Venue types: Gallery / Museum / Non-Profit / Collector
Exhibitions in artist-info 216 (S 58/ G 158) Did show together with - Top 5 of 2803 artists
(no. of shows) - all shows - Top 100
Alberto Giacometti (55)- 448
Pablo Picasso [Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, Paul Picasso] (54)- 1260
Jean Dubuffet (42)- 400
Joan Miró [Jean Miró, Joan Miró i Ferrà] (39)- 677
Max Ernst [Max Ernest] (36)- 588
Exhibitions by type
216:   66 / 81 / 68 / 1
Venues by type
149:   47 / 49 / 52 / 1
Curators 91
artist-info records Nov 1949 - Jan 2023
Countries - Top 5 of 18
Germany (67)
United States (47)
United Kingdom (40)
France (13)
Italy (12)
Cities - Top 5 of 64
London (36)
New York (29)
Berlin (14)
München (10)
Paris (8)
Venues (no. of shows ) Top 5 of 149
Museum of Modern Art - MoMA (1/7) (7)
Hanover Gallery (6)
Neue Nationalgalerie (5)
Tate Britain (5)
ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts (4)
Curators (no. of shows) Top 5 of 91
Lawrence Alloway(3), Ulrich Wilmes(2), Michael Peppiatt(2), Peter Selz(2), Andrew Carnduff Ritchie(2)
Offers/Requests Exhibition Announcement S / G Solo/Group Exhibitions   (..) Exhibitions + Favorites
Exhibition Title

Fremde sind wir uns selbst (4/5)

 - Bildnisse von Paula Modersohn-Becker bis Zanele Muholi - Innere Versunkenheit
Von der Heydt-Museum G Aug 2022 - Jan 2023 Wuppertal (131) +0
Storm, Anna (Curator)       +0
Exhibition Title

Postwar Modern

 - New Art in Britain 1945-1965
Barbican Art Gallery G Mar 2022 - Jun 2022 London (29) +0
Alison, Jane (Curator)       +0
Exhibition Title

A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920 – 2020

Whitechapel Gallery G Feb 2022 - Jun 2022 London (416) +0
Blazwick, Iwona (Curator)       +0
Exhibition Title

Francis Bacon

 - Man and Beast
Royal Academy of Arts S Jan 2022 - Apr 2022 London (49) +0
Peppiatt, Michael (Curator)       +0
Exhibition Title

Francis Bacon

Museum of Fine Arts Houston - MFAH S Feb 2020 - May 2020 Houston (298) +0
Exhibition Title

Brave New Visions

 - The émigrés who transformed the British art world
S|2 Gallery - Sotheby's G Jul 2019 - Aug 2019 London (7) +0
Ford, Sue Grayson (Curator)       +0
Summers, Cherith (Curator)       +0
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