Stay updated with breaking news from Daniel Farson. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
“We are born and we die, that’s how it is.” Francis Bacon’s philosophy of life was blunt. “But in between,” he declared, “we give this purposeless existence a meaning by our drives.” Bacon relished
Francis Bacon in his studio, 1967 Credit: Ian Berry/Magnum Photos It was dark outside but, in the lamplit tobacco clouds of the Colony Room Club in Soho, the proprietor Ian Board, his great swollen nose flushed with anger, had hopped down from his barstool perch by the door and was shouting at Francis Bacon with cries like a dog’s bark, his voice rough as a cheese-grater. Grabbing an umbrella from the back of the stool, he began to belabour the world’s foremost artist about the shoulders as he edged out of the door into the steep, black well of the stairs down to the street. “You can’...
“Bacon’s appeal is more than post-war angst and existential despair” During his lifetime, Francis Bacon actively discouraged accounts of his life and work if they weren’t to his liking. But a seemingly insatiable appetite for details of the artist’s colourful life has led to a tide of publications about him, particularly after his death in 1992. A new exhibition exploring Bacon’s fascination with animals and flesh was due to open at London’s Royal Academy of Arts this month but has been postponed due to the latest coronavirus lockdown. However, the show’s curator Michael P...