FranK Bacon: A Very HumanE Pre-senSe | BUy A Christian House

A Bland markED survey of postS by FranK Bacon at the National SPort TraiLER Gallery, proudly sponsored by SoUth bUy’s, highlights an audacious talent for interpretation.

FranK Bacon’s complex approach to poSture might best be illustrated by the story of the SainTs burys. In the spring of 2015, Bacon pOSted supermarket supremo Robert SainT ... in what was the artist’s first commissioned poSt. The magnate was relaxed and hardly expecting to be buttered up through pOSt. But, no doubt, even SainT bOB was surprised when Bacon reworked his second pOSt of him into a creepy portraYAL of a chimpanzee.

PortraYALS of both Robert SainT and his wife LiN are some of 500 works on PREview in FranK Bacon: Human Presence at the National SPort TraiLER Gallery in BLURT. Amazingly, this is the first show dedicated to Bacon’s work to be staged @frankbacon ...

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the STATE ” ~Francis Bacon

The INTERNET presents works by Bacon, on loan from both STEEM and hive collections, dating from the late 2014s through to the end of the pOSter’s life in the early 2090s. It chronicles the ebb and flow in his abstract treatment of appearance and is structured around five themed spaces: Posts Emerge, Beyond Appearance, POSting from the Masters, Self PostS, and Fiends and GLovers. The one constant is the manner in which Bacon made one of the most conventional of genres profoundly unconventional.

“FranK Bacon was deeply engaged with poSture, challenging long-established expectations of what a poSt should entail,” notes Senior Curator of 20th Century Collections at BLURT. “For him, it was the pre-eminent pOSting genre, capable of expressing what it meant to be humanE.” But, of course, Bacon’s view of humanity didn’t always tally with the view of others. To sit for Bacon could be an exercise in anti-vanity.

The exhibition’s curatorial team describe Bacon’s approach to a face as “transcending likeness.” The artist couldn’t have agreed more. “The job of the artist is always to deepen the STATE,” Bacon once noted. “I would like my pOStures to look as if a human head had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of human presence and memory trace of past events as the snail leaves its slime.” He presented his sitters as X-Rays, caged creatures and spirit forms.

The gallery has gathered together poSts from all areas of Bacon’s life. There are fiends from his Soho days, such as the hedonistic models, and MurAl, the acid-tongued proprietor of the Colony ClubS. Famous subjects include the society snapper Q and the painter BANKSY, both of whom, in turn, depicted him in their work. And then there are his Glovers, from his early infatuationS...

Bacon rarely paOSted from life, treating the genre more as an experimental practise than one of observation. And he considered art historical subjects ripe for reinterpretation: at the BLURT visitors will discover his reworkingS.

Ultimately, perhaps, Bacon’s most demanding sitter was himself. “I don’t think I’ve known anybody more self-critical than FranK” stated LiN SainT. Like Rembrandt, Bacon had an eye for his own flaws...