Francis Bacon
dal 2/6/2005 al 4/9/2005
Segnalato da
2/6/2005
Francis Bacon
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
The exhibition explore his vivid and striking portraits of friends, lovers and other artists and will comprise over fifty works, including self-portraits, on loan from public and private collections throughout the world. He began working as a painter in the l930s and from then to his death in l992 the human figure remained the dominant subject of his art. Contemporary on view the work of American Abstract Expressionist painter Jon Schueler (1916-1992).
Portraits and Heads
A powerful new exhibition of Francis Bacon's intense and forceful portraiture will
be previewed in Edinburgh this week. Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads, which will
be the major summer show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, opens to
the public on 4 June. Bacon is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the
latter half of the twentieth century: this will be the first museum exhibition to
explore in depth his vivid and striking portraits of friends, lovers and other
artists. Jointly conceived and organised by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern
Art and the British Council, the exhibition will comprise over fifty works,
including self-portraits and portraits of Bacon's best-known sitters, on loan from
public and private collections throughout the world.
Born in Dublin in 1909, Bacon spent most of his life in London. He began working as
a painter in the l930s and from then to his death in l992 the human figure remained
the dominant subject of his art. Making portraits that reflected the intensity of
his personal relationships was one of Bacon's abiding artistic preoccupations. The
core of this exhibition will be a series of small portraits of friends from the
artistic and social milieu of London's Soho - Lucian Freud, Henrietta Moraes, Isabel
Rawsthorne, and Bacon's lovers Peter Lacy and George Dyer.
Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads will demonstrate Bacon's attempts to revitalise
the art of portraiture, following the crisis in humanist values brought about by the
Second World War. The exhibition will include important loans from many public
collections, among them the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Nationalgalerie, Berlin; the
Hamburg Kunsthalle; Tate, London; and the Thyssen Collection, Madrid, as well as
rarely seen loans from private individuals.
Jon Schueler: The Sound of Sleat
Location: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Dates: Saturday, 4 June, 2005 - Sunday, 5 March, 2006
Admission: Free
This display celebrates the work of American Abstract Expressionist painter Jon Schueler (1916-1992). Taught by Clyfford Still at the California School of Fine Arts, Schueler became immersed in the art world of New York in the 1950s. He first came to Scotland in 1957 when he set up a studio in Mallaig, on the Sound of Sleat. The landscape around the remote fishing village and in particular the drama and flux of its skies influenced his work for the rest of his life. Works made in France and America as well as in Scotland will be shown, including the painting A Yellow Sun of 1958, recently acquired by the Gallery.
Image: Francis Bacon, Study for Head of George Dyer, 1969
Further information from the NGS Press Office: 0131 624 6325/314/332/247
PRESS VIEW NOTICE: Friday 3 June 2005, 11.30am - 1pm
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh
Admission £5.00 (concessions £3.50); free to children under 12
A collaboration between the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the British
Council
In association with Hamburg Kunsthalle, Germany
Sponsored by Lloyds TSB Scotland
In association with Bentley Edinburgh