Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait, 1977, oil and dry transfer lettering on canvas
78 x 58⅛ in. (198.2 x 147.7 cm.). Estimate on Request. © Christie’s Images Limited 2018.  Francis BaconTwo Studies for a Portrait
of George Dyer (Sara Hildén Art Museum, Finland), Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait (1977, estimate on request) will star in Christie’s
Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, which will take place on
17 May 2018. The powerful large-scale eulogy to his great muse and
lover George Dyer was painted in Paris in 1977 and was last exhibited in
London the same year at the Royal Academy of Arts in a group exhibition
titled ‘British Painting: 1952-77’. A poignant celebration of his most
important subject, Study for Portrait will be on view in London until 15
April, the first time it has been seen there since the show at the
Royal Academy over 40 years ago. The work comes from the distinguished
collection of Magnus Konow, who acquired it from Bacon through
Marlborough Gallery shortly after its creation in 1977. This therefore
represents the first time the work will be offered at auction. As a
young man, based in Monaco, Konow built an impressive collection of
works by School of London painters, and particularly admired Bacon, with
whom he became friends during the 1970s. In 1983, Konow gifted a
triptych of George Dyer, Three Studies for a Portrait (1973), to the
Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where it remains in the permanent
collection. At the time that Bacon and Konow developed their friendship,
Bacon was a regular visitor to Monaco from Paris, sometimes with Lucian
Freud, staying with Konow for bouts of gambling in Monte Carlo.
With its majestic, near-sculptural figure seated against a
screen of deep velvet black, in Study for Portrait, Bacon further
developed elements from his 1968 masterpiece Two Studies for a Portrait
of George Dyer (Sara Hildén Art Museum, Finland), as well as his
landmark Triptych of 1976. The present work also extends the language of
the dark, cinematic ‘black triptychs’ made in the aftermath of Dyer’s
death in 1971. This tragic event, which took place less than thirty-six
hours before the opening of Bacon’s career-defining retrospective at the
Grand Palais, had a devastating impact upon the artist, prompting him
to take a studio in Paris. By 1977, buoyed by the success of his major
exhibition at Galerie Claude Bernard that year, his grief had given way
to a period of newfound contentment, reflection and innovation. Backlit
by streaks of red and green, and bracketed with raw linen, the central
panel appears to hover before the viewer in three dimensions. Dry
transfer lettering, inspired by Picasso’s Cubist collages, evokes the
literary rubble of the artist’s studio floor, where John Deakin
photographed Dyer seated in his underwear. If the black triptychs had
replayed the harrowing details of his death, here Bacon weaves a fantasy
of reincarnation. As bright red blood stains his shadow – evocative of
the artist’s own silhouette – Dyer is momentarily restored to the flesh. Francis Outred, Chairman & Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art
EMERI, Christie’s: “Whilst Bacon would never fully come to terms with
the death of his beloved George Dyer, the works produced in the wake of
this tragedy remain some of the twentieth century’s most vivid
interrogations of the human condition. Held in the same private
collection since the year of its creation, Study for Portrait, 1977,
extends the language of the landmark black triptychs into a glowing,
visceral celebration of his most iconic muse. With its virtuosic play of
texture, raw canvas and piercing colour, it demonstrates the innovative
new directions that Bacon’s practice would take as he built a new life
for himself in Paris. It is a privilege to be exhibiting this work once
again in London for the first time in over forty years, close to its
original unveiling at the Royal Academy in 1977.”
Magnus Konow: “Bacon would always talk about Dyer. I think
that he was the only man he really loved in his life. I find this work
is so powerful – for me it is probably one of the best paintings of
their mystical love affair, and that’s what drew me to it.”
Widely exhibited internationally, the work represents the
culmination of Bacon’s painterly language during one of the most
significant periods of his practice. The work’s saturated colour fields
and stark geometries border on abstraction. Bacon plays with different
textures of black, offsetting the matte backdrop with the lustrous
central panel. The pale lilac ground, rendered in thin pigmented layers,
is juxtaposed with bright accents of blue, canary yellow and red. The
billowing shadow, formally at odds with the figure, spreads across the
surface like tar. Circular lenses, derived from a book on radiography,
punctuate the figure as if attempting to bring his form more clearly
into focus. The flesh itself is an ode to carnal pleasure, wrought with
fluid, tactile brushstrokes, spectral veils of white and scumbled
strains of colour around the eyes and mouth. It is Dyer in his prime,
flickering like a projection or an x-ray, presiding over the composition
with the tortured grandeur of Bacon’s former Popes. Raised upon a dais
against a blank, clinical abyss, his quivering form speaks to the
transient nature of the human condition.
Magnus Konow’s family roots are in Norway: his father was a
celebrated Norwegian Olympic sailor, who competed in multiple Olympics
between 1908 and 1948, winning two gold medals and one silver. His
paternal grandmother, Dagny Konow, sat for Edvard Munch during the late
1880s.
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