Francis Bacon: Hirshhorn Museum Exhibition Catalogue

Bacon, Francis; James T. Demetrion; Lawrence Gowing; Sam Hunter; Anna Brooke

ISBN 10: 0962320307 / ISBN 13: 9780962320309

Published by Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 1989

About this Item

First edition. Very Good paperback with a touch of shelf wear, a couple of tiny laminate peels, and a bump to the crown resulting in a dimple throughout and a small crack across the spine. BOOKS SHIP THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY, WRAPPED IN PADDING, IN A BOX. The catalogue for a retrospective exhibition of work by the British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992), held at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., October 12, 1989 - January 7, 1990. Foreword by curator James T. Demetrion; essays by Lawrence Gowing and Sam Hunter; chronology by Anna Brooke. 187 pages with 9 gatefolds; frontis portrait of the artist by Arnold Newman + 59 color plates and 12 b&w text illustrations; 9 x 11.25 inches. Catalogue of the 59 works exhibited; public collections list; exhibition history; bibliography. Seller Inventory # 25287

Bibliographic Details

Title: Francis Bacon: Hirshhorn Museum Exhibition ...

Publisher: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Publication Date: 1989

Binding: Paperback

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

• A monograph created in collaboration with the artist himself
• Features some of the most moving and disturbing works in Bacon's oeuvre


Francis Bacon's work has a strength and vitality to it that reinforces his position as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. The violent intensity with which his paintings give expression to the existential angst of his fellow human beings is virtually without parallel in the history of the art. Bacon's work (1909-1992) undoubtedly includes some of the most extraordinary and powerful paintings in modern art, reflecting the isolation and terror of the human condition, conveyed through the distortion of features and the nude body.

This volume comprises Bacon's series of portraits and self-portraits, the weirdly beautiful yet terrifying variations of Velázquez's Pope Innocent X, the painfully moving Crucifixion, the enigmatic figure studies and twelve gatefolds of the powerful triptychs. The 240 paintings were selected by the artist himself, and he was closely involved with every aspect of their reproduction in this monograph.

Review:

"My painting is not violent; It's life that is violent" - Francis Bacon"