Francis Bacon, Study for a Self-Portrait, 1979 © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS 2023.
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was fascinated by the historical genre of portraiture and pushed at its boundaries in his self-portraits and images of lovers and friends. Like many western European artists of the twentieth century, Bacon's portraits reflected shifting ideas of human selfhood, informed in part by new technologies of image production and in part by the many shocks delivered by the times.
In this talk for ARTscapades which coincides with the exhibition Francis Bacon: Human Presence at the National Portrait Gallery, Ben Street explores how Bacon's portraits track his obsession with certain artists of the past - van Gogh, Velázquez, Rembrandt, and others - all of which are transformed and made new by his appropriations. What Bacon sought was not likeness - something easily achieved with a camera - but presence: the physicality of the human subject, rendered in paint that evokes the fleshiness of the body and its transformations over time. Endlessly mined by living painters, Bacon's work mounts a defence of painting as uniquely able to capture these ideas.
This event will be recorded. Ticket holders will be emailed a link to view the recording afterwards which is available for one month. Proceeds from ARTscapades ticket sales benefit museums, galleries and other arts-based organisations and projects.
Francis Bacon: Human Presence is at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 October 2024 to 19 January 2025.
This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live with Q&A, or on-demand for one month afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.