Events, Festivals and Exhibitions

The exhibition Francis Bacon: Human Presence opens on 10 October at the National Portrait Gallery. It will be the first in nearly two decades to concentrate on the artist’s portraits.

The exhibition charts Francis Bacon’s career with over 50 of his paintings, delving into his approach to portraiture starting in the late 1940s. It includes self-portraits and depictions of significant individuals from the early 1950s onwards, featuring lovers such as Peter Lacy, George Dyer and John Edwards, as well as friends like Isabel Rawsthorne, Henrietta Moraes, Lucian Freud and Muriel Belcher.

In a unique presentation, Bacon’s art is exhibited alongside seldom-seen photographs and portraits of the artist from the Gallery’s Collection, taken by prominent twentieth-century photographers including Cecil Beaton, Arnold Newman and Bill Brandt.

Francis Bacon is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable painters of the twentieth century. Renowned as a figurative artist, his distinctive use of paint transforms the representation of his subjects. The National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Francis Bacon: Human Presence, marks the gallery’s inaugural focus on this significant artist, delving into Bacon’s profound and intricate relationship with portraiture. It will trace his journey from reacting to earlier artists’ portraits to creating large-scale triptychs that commemorate lost lovers.

The exhibition will showcase over 50 pieces from both private and public collections globally, alongside photographs of Bacon, and will be arranged both thematically and chronologically. It will commence with pieces from the late 1940s and conclude with his final portraits, including one left incomplete on his studio easel.

Spanning five pivotal stages—Portraits Emerge, Beyond Appearance, Painting from the Masters, Self Portraits, and Friends and Lovers—the exhibition will narrate the development of Bacon’s approach, highlighting how he simultaneously embraced and subverted the conventional concepts of portraiture.

When Is Francis Bacon: Human Presence

It will run from 10 October 2024 to 19 January 2025.

Where Is It?

National Portrait Gallery, London.

Tickets

Tickets: £23, with concession from £1. To book tickets or for further information, go to: www.npg.org.uk

Main image: Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne, 1967 by Francis Bacon © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights
reserved, DACS/Artimage 2024. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. All images courtesy of National Portrait Gallery.