Francis Bacon’s Powerful Painting ‘Triptych 1986-7’

SHANGHAI AND LONDON – Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1986-7 (estimate: £35,000,000-55,000,000) will be offered at auction for the first time in Christie’s 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale, a key auction within the 20/21 Shanghai to London sale series, which will take place on 1 March 2022. An extraordinary meditation on the passage of time, and a rhapsody on the solitude of the human condition, Triptych 1986-7 stands among Bacon’s last great paintings. Across three monumental canvases, his most rare and celebrated format, he entwines imagery drawn from the annals of twentieth-century history with a poignant, retrospective view of his own life and art. Originally unveiled in New York in 1987 at Marlborough Gallery, Christie’s will exhibit the work at Rockefeller Center until 15 February 2022.The suited figure in the left-hand panel is based on a press clipping of the US President Woodrow Wilson, stepping forward as he was leaving the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919; the right-hand panel was inspired by a photograph of Leon Trotsky’s study taken after his assassination in 1940. In the centre sits a figure resembling Bacon’s then-partner John Edwards, his pose reminiscent of the artist’s beloved George Dyer in the haunting eulogy Triptych August 1972 (Tate, London). Widely exhibited throughout its lifetime, Triptych 1986-7 was most recently seen in the Centre Georges Pompidou’s acclaimed exhibition ‘Bacon en Toutes Lettres’ (2019-20).The year after its creation, Triptych 1986-7 was one of 22 paintings shown at the Central House of Artists’ Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow: the first exhibition by a well-known artist from the West to take place in Soviet Russia. Many viewers did not recognise the Trotsky photograph as a source, but to those who did, the painting’s presence heralded a sea-change in the country’s political attitudes towards art: the Iron Curtain, notably, would fall the next year. The British curator of the exhibition, James Birch, has recently documented his experience in a publication titled Bacon in Moscow (2022, Profile Books Ltd). Following its inclusion in major exhibitions at the Museo d’Arte Moderna, Lugano in 1993 and the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1996, the work made its American institutional debut in the Yale Center for British Art’s celebrated 1999 touring retrospective. As it travelled the country from East to West to South, its nod to US history, itself rare within Bacon’s oeuvre, would certainly have resonated with American audiences: Woodrow Wilson emerges from the darkness, his face pale and the weight of the world on his shoulders.Triptych 1986-7 is one of a rare number of large-scale triptychs by Bacon to remain in private hands. Between 1962 and 1991, the artist produced just 28 such works measuring 78 by 58 inches, nearly half of which reside in museums worldwide. Recalling the grand altarpieces of Grünewald and Cimabue, the seminal Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (Tate, London) had announced Bacon’s arrival as an artist in 1944. He would go on to expand the genre to near-cinematic proportions, coming full circle with a second blood-red version of the 1944 triptych, also now held in the Tate, shortly after he created Triptych 1986-7. Compositionally, the closest cousin of Triptych 1986-7 remains the 1972 ‘black triptych’ produced in memory of Dyer, where dark canvas-like voids and haunting, liquefied shadows frame the human form. These devices would also play important roles in Three Portraits – Posthumous Portrait of George Dyer; Self-Portrait; Portrait of Lucian Freud (1973) and Triptych March 1974 (Fondación Juan March, Madrid), as well as the artist’s final Triptych of 1991 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). The depiction of Woodrow Wilson’s shoes shares much in common with Bacon’s Study for a Self-Portrait – Triptych (1985-86), while its conflation of public and private histories might be seen in relation to the landmark Triptych (1976).By 1987, Bacon was basking in the extraordinary success of his 1985 Tate retrospective, whose Director Sir Alan Bowness had named him the ‘greatest living painter’. Conversely, he was still haunted by Dyer’s sudden death, and had spent much of the previous decade in painterly confrontation with his own mortality. Two self-portraits from that period depict Bacon with a watch. In one, its ticking hand seems to merge organically with his own face. In drawing together elements from all eras of his practice, the work sets this temporal framework in the context of a life lived in paint. Trotsky’s lectern, in another reading, could just as easily be an easel; its sheet, stained with blood and lettering, might be a just-begun canvas or half-started novel. Art and life slip in and out of focus across the work’s three panels, each illuminated like a beacon against the void.

Paintings descend the stairs

Rome From January 4th to February 7th, 2022 Galleria Borghese Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5. Galleria Borghese will inaugurate the initiative “Paintings descend the stairs” to show small treasures that do not find a daily place in the exhibition layout and are kept in the deposits of the museum, located above the exhibition floors and currently not accessible to the public.About fifteen works in rotation, will enrich the exhibition. Small paintings with figures and landscapes, on canvas or board, but also copper, mainly from the Flemish school, but not only.Of relevance is the nucleus of female painters, including the Portrait of a Lady by Lucia Anguissola, probably the portrait of her sister Sofonisba, also a painter. The portrait depicts a delicate face framed by a light lace and edged with golden light, which holds between the fingers the cord necklace, pictorial sign of recognition of Lucia.Or The Three Graces, an oil on canvas work already attributed to Francesco Vanni and Rutilio Manetti, and recently returned to the hand of Ventura Salimbeni. The work represents a landscape embellished with profiles of light, in the manner of Paul Brill, in the center of which are depicted the three Graces, Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia, according to Greek and Roman mythology, gods linked to the cult of nature and vegetation, or, according to the neoplatonic vision, the three faces of Love, Chastity, Voluptuousness and Beauty, linked to the cult of Venus-Aphrodite.

Christie’s to offer Landmark Francis Bacon Painting

London – This October, during London’s Frieze Week, Christie’s will present Francis Bacon’s landmark painting Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd version 1971, unseen in public for 45 years. It stands as the grand finale to his celebrated body of Papal portraits and is the only painting that unites the Pope with his greatest love George Dyer, who is depicted as the Pope’s reflection. First exhibited on 26 October 1971, in the legendary retrospective of Francis Bacon’s work at the Grand Palais in Paris, Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd version 1971 was executed six months earlier in April 1971. The painting represents the first and only time in his oeuvre that Bacon united his two greatest obsessions: the Pope and George Dyer – his great muse and lover. The canvas became a tragic premonition of Dyer’s fateful end when, less than thirty-six hours before the opening of the career-defining exhibition, Dyer was found dead. Acquired by the family of the present owner in 1973 this work has appeared in all the major publications dedicated to Bacon’s work but never exhibited publicly. Francis Bacon’s Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd version 1971 will come to auction as the centerpiece of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 6 October 2017 and will be on view at Christie’s King Street from 30 September. Francis Outred Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s EMERI: “’This painting is quite simply Art History. If Bacon’s oeuvre was shaped by his devotion to George Dyer and the aftermath of his death provided his darkest and most celebrated triptychs, then this painting represents the ultimate landmark. Painted six months before George Dyer would commit suicide on the eve of Bacon’s major retrospective at the Grand Palais, it is a tragic premonition which unites Bacon’s two greatest muses, the Pope and George Dyer for the first and only time. Against a background of naked canvas, an extraordinary outburst of controlled expression produces a maelstrom of activity, drawing the eye first to the sumptuous symphony of rounded red forms and then to the Pope at the centre of the composition whose own reflection appears in the back of the mirror and George Dyer’s in the front. Dyer’s hand is poised ready to turn off the light. Rarely have I seen a single panel carry so much power and profundity, the swipes of colour and scumbling which realise the heads are a sight to behold. This painting gives me a shiver down my spine and I am extremely excited to be sharing it with the public his October.” (photo: francis bacon)

The Bjäringer collection

Paris – Christie’s France will present the Bjäringer collection on October 20th. This collection offers a panoramic view of the Parisian avant-garde over the course of the 20th century. Assembled by two generations of Swedish connoisseurs initiated by pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Erik Bjäringer, the collection features paintings by a selection of artists from the School of Paris, with highlights including an important painting by Fernand Léger, L’arbre vert, 1932 (estimate: €1,500,000-2,000,000), unseen on the public market since the 1960s, alongside works by Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí.Jussi Pylkkänen, Global President, Christie’s: “It is a true honor for Christie’s to offer this splendid selection from one of the great Scandinavian collecting families which we have known for over 20 years in the very city where these artists have lived and worked. The Bjäringer collection tells the story of two generations of educated, passionate Swedish collectors who expressed their love for French abstraction through a comprehensive collection of paintings by artists, both French and from other parts of the world, who have been attracted by the creative frenzy of Paris. From Marc Chagall to Alexander Calder and from Salvador Dalí to Karel Appel, the group pays tribute to Paris as the epicenter of the art world from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1960s.” (photo: the Bjäringer collection)

Publication of the catalogue raisonnè of Hartung

The first volume of the catalogue raisonné of the painted and drawn works by French artist of German descent Hans Hartung (1904-1989) is now online at hanshartung.com. It covers the 1914-1944 period and includes 2241 art pieces, in which we integrated his only sculpture. This digital edition offers, in an open and generous way, an access to a significant amount of data that has been developed by the members of the Hartung-Bergman Foundation and falls within the public service purpose of the institution. Jean-Luc Uro is in charge of the scientific and technical development of the catalogue and Thomas Schlesser is the publication director. This work is based primarily on the immense, extremely well-organized and well-thought documentation that Hartung himself left of his work; it also benefited from collaborations with many specialists from the entire world for over 20 years.This medium primarily enables to discover the least-known of Hans Hartung’s period – and yet, a crucial and fascinating one, different from the many historiographical commonplaces made by the painter. It also allows to observe the informal and automatic artistic style he used as young as 18, in 1922; to examine his figurative style as an adolescent, his experience in the post-expressionist period and the “dreadful” years of 1940-1942; to become familiar with his transfer-printing technique from the beginning of the 1930s and with the development of his unclassifiable visual vocabulary.
In short, this medium allows the readers to see a dense aesthetic journey, diverse but coherent, long before the “glorious” post-war years, and to get familiar along the way with a biography particularly marked by the tragedies of World War II (hired in the Foreign Legion, concentration camp life, and leg amputation).
As a public service institution, the Foundation seeks to provide audacious and innovative media and therefore took on the initiative to develop a unique model of catalogue raisonné: displaying synthetic perceptions of artistic production; a search interface allowing numerous possibilities and easier access to bibliographic information; a reconstitution of exhibited sets (themselves exhaustively referenced); archives (published photographs by Hartung himself and displays); an intuitive interface for a very simple navigation – a linear, piece by piece layering – as well as advanced search features.
In addition to its generous and innovative aspect, choosing an online edition also allows for future and potential developments and adjustments: as such, the Foundation welcomes any additional information that could enrich the content. In particular, the discovery of lost or stolen works, information on provenance or affiliations, document references and iconographic or bibliographic sources… The catalogue raisonné is therefore likely to evolve, with an archiving of previous editions at each modification.
Ongoing and future developments
The Foundation also wishes to point out that this catalogue raisonné comes from a sophisticated database, which is being continuously enriched internally and which can only be consulted at the Foundation and by appointment, with access to a substantial amount of sources (access to all bibliographic content, for example, which cannot be offered online for legal reasons).
The first volume of this catalogue raisonné of the painted and drawn works is related to the catalogue of engravings published in 2010. There will also be links to the second volume (1945-1960) and to the third volume (1961-1989), currently being developed, which will benefit, like the previous two, from an intuitive interface adapted to their singularity.
The Hartung-Bergman Foundation, based in Antibes, is universal legatee of the work of Hans Hartung and Anna-Eva Bergman; it is responsible for a remarkable triple heritage – artistic, archival and architectural – and works for the dissemination of these two major figures of abstraction. The publication of the catalogue raisonné inaugurates a particularly rich year 2016, in which Hartung will be the subject of a double exhibition on the war period in Aubagne, accompanied by a collective book by Gallimard (Beau geste – Hans Hartung, peintre et légionnaire) under the curatorship of Fabrice Hergott; an exhibition in Siegen on the 1960s and photography at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst; an international symposium at the German Centre of Art History; a scientific edition of his autobiography (Autoportrait, 1976) by Presses du réel. (photo hartung)

Post-War & Contemporary Art

South Kensington – Christie’s is pleased to announce the launch of FIRST OPEN/LDN as part of the Global FIRST OPEN Auctions this September, including FIRST OPEN/NYC, FIRST OPEN/ASIA and FIRST OPEN/ONLINE. Taking place in South Kensington on 25 September, this carefully curated selection of 194 works with estimates ranging from £700 to £80,000, will showcase accessible works by global talent, including works by Damien Hirst, R.H. Quaytman, Marc Quinn, and Jannis Kounellis such as his painting Untitled from 1987, (estimate: £70,000 – 90,000). A key evolution for the Post-War & Contemporary Art sales in South Kensington, FIRST OPEN/LDN strives to be inclusive in its offering to collectors, both new and established.

Peter Schlör: High Light

Frankfurt – Main Niddastrasse 84 Opening: March 31, 2011, 7 pm exhibition until May 14, 2011 a catalogue will be available It was Caspar David Friedrich, who first depicted a sole human being – tiny against the dark background of the open Sea in his well-known painting «Monk by the Sea» (1808-1810). Here, it becomes clear at first sight, how small we are in comparison to the enormous power of nature. Also the new series «HIGH LIGHT» by the German photographer Peter Schloer (born 1964) makes it evident, how strong nature is and how it controls our life. We see beautiful meteorological phenomena found by the eye of Schloers camera at the island «La Palma». In contrast to Caspar David Friedrich, Schloer doesn´t show any human – because it is the spectator, who now takes the place of Friedrich´s monk – alone in silent conversation with nature. (Schloer_Las_Canadas_Mail.jpg)

Stephen Farthing: The Back Story

Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J OBD until 19/12/2010 Royal Academy of Arts This November, the Royal Academy of Arts will present Artists’ Laboratory 02, featuring the recent work of Stephen Farthing RA. The exhibition will display a selection of drawings and large scale paintings, made since 2005, all of which examine the artist’s preoccupation with looking beyond the surface of the visual image by exploring the story behind the work. Farthing has mixed writing, painting and drawing in varying proportions to produce a sequence of works that take aspects of the history of painting as their subject matter with a view towards better understanding how words and images can work together. Many of the drawings in this exhibition started life as a creative response to the work he carried out as executive editor of 1001 Paintings You Should See Before You Die. Farthing said ‘I decided to set the acquired knowledge of working in the studio, to turn what were masses of facts into something useful to me as an artist’.
Born in London in 1950, Stephen Farthing studied at St Martin’s School of Art before taking his Masters Degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art where he received an Abbey Major Scholarship, taking him to The British School at Rome in 1976.
The Artists’ Laboratory is a new programme of exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts. The programme gives its’ contemporary Royal Academicians the opportunity to take risks and explore new ideas within their artistic practice and is a chance for the public to experience less familiar aspects of their work. The exhibition underpins the Royal Academy’s unique position in having artists at its core. Artists’ Laboratory 03 will take place in Autumn 2011.
This exhibition has been devised by a committee of Royal Academicians and curated by Paul Huxley RA together with Kathleen Soriano, Director of Exhibitions and Edith Devaney, Head of Membership and Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts. (Image: ‘Boucher: The Back Story’, 2010. Oil on canvas, 207 x 173 cm. Courtesy of the Artist)

L’Austria come non si è mai vista

Milano 16 giugno stazione centrale. L’agenzia di comunicazione guidata da Lorenzo Cascino ha ideato un evento di street painting 3D e ha chiamato a realizzarlo Edgar Müller, uno dei maggiori esponenti di street art a livello mondiale. Per ottenere la più alta visibilità e massimizzare i contatti con il target di riferimento, Unbranded ha scelto il luogo più frequentato a Milano da chi viaggia: la Stazione Centrale. Nella Galleria delle Carrozze, la galleria esterna in cui sono già presenti le mega-affissioni di Austria Turismo, l’artista, per la prima volta in Italia, realizzerà un imponente dipinto di oltre 40 m2 che darà l’illusione ottica di una splendida vallata austriaca che si apre nel pavimento. L’operazione di comunicazione non convenzionale, ideata e curata da Unbranded in ogni sua fase sotto la direzione creativa di Gianluca Ghezzi, prevede anche la presenza sul posto di hostess che distribuiranno il Travelbook estivo e la realizzazione di un video del “making of” che sarà messo online sui più noti siti di videosharing. L’opera resterà visibile al pubblico fino alla fine del mese.

Transitions. Painting at the (other) end of art

Reggio Emilia fino al 31/10/2009 Via Fratelli Cervi 66, Collezione Maramotti La Collezione Maramotti inaugura il proprio spazio espositivo temporaneo con una mostra collettiva costituita da opere della propria collezione, acquisite recentemente. Trenta lavori di ventun artisti che, indipendentemente dalla loro nazionalità, sono accomunati dall’operare nel contesto newyorkese. Opere che hanno in comune non soltanto lo spazio temporale in cui sono state prodotte (dal 2001 al 2008), ma soprattutto la dilatazione degli strumenti concettuali e formali di investigazione della pittura in altri territori. Con l’inizio della globalizzazione la pittura ha saputo/dovuto, con strategie individuali, porsi in dialogo coi nuovi media. Nella costruzione del quadro l’artista si appropria di strumenti che l’universo tecnologico e industriale gli suggeriscono, articolando forme e superfici aderenti ad una percettività generata dai prodotti di massa e dall’immaginario tecnologico: dal detrito naturale, all’oggetto trovato fino a photoshop. Nessuna opera di questa mostra si consuma pero’ nel discorso sul metodo; il metodo e’ sempre medium di un discorso iconografico. Opere di Pedro Barbeito, Will Cotton, Ann Craven, Jules de Balincourt, Benjamin Degen, Bart Domburg, Lalla Essaydi, Wayne Gonzales, Kent Henricksen, Matthew Day Jackson, Jutta Koether, Damian Loeb, Enoc Perez, Daniel Rich, Lisa Ruyter, Dana Schutz, Jessica Stockholder, John Tremblay, Kelley Walker, Dan Walsh, Kevin Zucker (Immagine: Matthew1)

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam seeks new director

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the largest museum for modern art  and design in The Netherlands, plans to reopen in March/April 2010  with a completely renovated and spectacularly enlarged building. The  Stedelijk Museum is currently recruiting for the function of general  artistic director.  The new director will be the successor of Gijs van Tuyl, whose  contract expires on 31 December 2009. Other directors in the recent  past were: Willem Sandberg (1945-1963), Edy de Wilde (1963-1985), Wim  Beeren (1985-1993) and Rudi Fuchs (1993-2003).  The Stedelijk Museum houses a unique collection of 90.000 objects,  embracing a wide variety of disciplines: painting, sculpture, film  and video art, works on paper, artists’ books, photography, applied  arts and design. Outstanding names and movements are Breitner,  Matisse, Malevich, Mondrian, Rietveld and De Stijl, the Bauhaus,  Cobra and post-1945 American Art, with Newman, Kelly, Pollock,  Stella, Warhol and, more recent, Nauman, Kiefer, Merz and Sottsass.  The photographic collection is the oldest belonging to any museum of  modern art in Western Europe and the collection of film and video art  is similarly unique. The large and varied poster collection and the  collection of modern furniture are also world-beaters.  When the Stedelijk opens its doors in 2010, the world-class  collection will once again be exhibited in all its glory. The museum  intends to specialise in exhibitions of great international  relevance, which will serve as sources of inspiration and growth for  the collection. The museum will profile itself both as a  collection-based museum and an inspirational and trend-setting  platform for contemporary art.

Wilfred Moser

Bern, Kunstmuseum BernThe exhibition presents the development of the work of artist, a pioneer figure in the development of post-war art in Europe and a main representative of the gestural abstract in Switzerland from his early work in the 1930s to his final pastels in 1997. Here the focus is on his artistic innovation, which has received too little attention so far, such as the ‘Paysages de Metro’ from the 1960s which represent a new type of iconography of the metropolis in twentieth-century painting. Fino al 14/6/2009