[Image: Sample of: Self-Portrait 1971, via gala.univ-perp /Artwork: designslinger]

The bacon I'm referring to in the title is not the smoked pork variety, but the painter Francis Bacon
variety. He is one of my favorite painter's of all time. If you aren't familiar with his body of work, there are several monographs that have been published which provide a good survey of his art that are available at the library, or check out today's sources posting with links to web and book links, accompanied by brief descriptions of their content.

Bacon's paintings were primarily focused on the human figure, whether in portrait or full body.
He placed his subjects in spaces that were identified by simple lines, or impressions of decor. He was not a photo realist in execution, but he had great technical ability. He manipulated his paint and canvas surface with a dexterity and control as impecable as any true-to-life portrait painter. He could capture the likeness of his subject in a seemingly random way, but a single appropriately placed brush stroke magically pull it all together.

[Image: Sample of: Study for Portrait II, 1956, via guardian /Artwork: designslinger]

The Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin, moved their native son's studio lock, stock and barrel
from its South Kensington location in London to Ireland in 1998. It was an immense undertaking because Bacon's studio was the physical manifestation of the messiness of his life. Layer upon layer of old newspapers, canvas, books, photographs, paint tubes, moldy brushes, tin cans, wadded clothing, all covered in dust, walls filled with thousands of paint dabs, were meticulously cataloged, removed and reconstructed in Dublin. It is as an important work of art, and view into Bacon's inner life, as any of his canvases.

His life was full of chaos and excess. Yet, he was incredibly disciplined whether in the routine of
nightly carousing, or in the daily morning painting ritual in his studio. By his own account, he stumbled into painting, and the messiness of his personal and emotional life found release in his art, which allowed him a freedom of expression unlike any other painter to date. His pictures are not always easy to look at, but at their most basic level they capture your attention. If you take the time to look at them more closely, they reveal a mastery of concentration and storytelling.

[Image: Sample of: Painting, 1946, via ibiblio.org /Artwork: designslinger]

I discovered him many years ago in my hometown museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, owner's
of Bacon's 1954 painting, "Figure with Meat." I had never seen anything like it, and as an impressionable teenager I will never forget my reaction to the odd little man sitting between two sides of beef. The ghostly face, the  blue/purple color of his cloak and hat contrasted with the pale red and flesh of the beef, against the dark black back round, knocked my socks off. And, I was all of sixteen. I have seen many Bacon paintings since then, and have collected a sizable library of books published about him, and like any artist, I find some of his work stronger in some paintings than others, but I find all of them worthy of my regard for him as one of the best five painters of all time.