Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was born at a nursing home in Adelaide on the 28th of October in 1909 and he died on the 28th of April in 1992. Francis bacon was raised by the family nanny, Jessie Lightfoot, a woman from Cornwall, known by Francis as "Nanny Lightfoot" who continued to play a key role in Francis's development as an artist even after his exile by Captain Bacon.Francis drifted through rented homes in England, accompanied by his nanny Miss Lightfoot. On returning to Ireland after the world war 1, Bacon was sent to live with his maternal grandmother and step-grandfather, Winfred and Kerry Supple. whilst residing with his grandparents Francis spent 18 months boarding at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, from the third term of 1924 until April 1926. This was only brush with formal education as he quit the school before he could be expelled. Later on that year Francis was thrown out of Straffan Lodge following an incident in which his father found him admiring himself in front of the mirror draped in his mothers underwear, Francis had a difficult relationship with his father once admitting to being sexually attracted to him.

Francis went through many jobs, he started working for a telephone company where he met his  patron lover Eric Hall, he was shortly sacked from this telephoning answering position at a shop selling womans clothing. Francis was then made redundant with an allowance of £3 a week from his mothers trust fund, living on his instincts drifting, when Francis was broke he found that by expedient the of rent dodging and petty theft, he could manage a reasonable economy.Francis then met a lady named Yvonne Bocquentin, a pianist and connoisseur at the opening of an art exhibition. Bacon lived for three months with Madame Bocquentin and her family at their house near Chantilly. His visit to a exhibition in 1927 exhibition of 106 paintings by Picasso at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg in Paris, aroused his artistic interest, he took the train to Paris five more times that week to see shows and art exhibitions.

Queensberry Mews, was of Bacon's carpet rugs and furniture which were influenced by the paintings and tapestries of Jean Lurcat. Bacon visited Paris where he bought a secondhand book on disease of the mouth containing high quality hand-colored plates of both open mouths and oral interiors, which haunted and obsessed him for the remainder of his life.Bacon began painting during his early 20s and worked only sporadically until his mid-30s, he drifted and earned his living as and interior decorator and designer of furniture and rugs. he is an Irish- born British painter who liked to paint the human body (figurative painter), known for his bold, graphic and emotionally raw imagery.

I chose to look at Francis Bacon because throughout a series of images or surreal paintings that he does he has the same level of compassion in all of them. I especially love how personal his portraits became shortly after his lover George Dyer committed suicide. I also love the shapes that he uses when he is drawing the human figure.