A collaboration between the British Council and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, this exhibition opened shortly before the 2005 Edinburgh Festival and remains on show throughout the summer. It then travels to Hamburg, where it will be shown in a slightly different form at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, one of Germany's finest museums for both historic and contemporary art.
The exhibition focuses on a particular aspect of Bacon's wprk - his portraits. Many of these are simply heads, shown close-up and stripped of surrounding paraphernalia. Some are of lovers - Peter Lacy and George Dyer; some of friends - Lucian Freud and Michel Leiris; some of the denizens of Soho - Muriel Belcher and Isabel Rawsthorne; and many more of himself, shown in a variety of states, from the jaunty to an almost spectral faintness towards the end of his life. These are fascinating glimpses of Bacon at his most intimate, and reveal his attempts to tackle and re-invent the art of portraiture, at a time when it was more or less considered dead. In this series of approximately 40 portraits Bacon seems almost to whip the image into shape, creating portraits that incorporate both the instantaneity of a photograph and the depth and presence of an Old Master.
A fully illustrated catalogue will be published to coincide with the exhibtion, with newly commissioned essays from the novelist Paul Bailey and the art historian Martin Hammer. The exhibition is curated by Andrea Rose of the British Council, Richard Calvocoressi and Philip Long of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and Christoph Heinrich of Hamburger Kunsthalle.
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