The Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation mourns the passing of Eddy Batache

I am deeply saddened to announce the death of my great friend Eddy Batache. Eddy was an outstanding art historian and a former lecturer in French Studies at the University of Sydney. He was also the author of several books on Surrealism and on metaphysics and of two limited editions illustrated with etchings by Francis Bacon and other artists. He and his partner, Reinhard Hassert, met Bacon in Paris in 1975. During the last seventeen years of his life, they became two of the artist’s closest friends and confidants.

I first met them in September 2012, encountering two generous, endearing characters with an ideal rapport. They retraced their life-stories and their long friendship with Francis Bacon for me with unusual wit and liveliness. It was the start of a sincere, enduring friendship. Eddy and Reinhard’s life experience constantly enhanced my knowledge of history of art, among many other subjects, and they turned out to be my most powerful spur in all matters relating to Bacon. The more time I spent with them, the more I learned about Bacon, until eventually I felt as if I knew him.

Eddy insisted that their correspondence with Francis Bacon and the vast photographic archive they had amassed over the years they spent with him – a unique iconographic resource – should be conserved in his memory and theirs in my collection, the ‘MB Art Collection’.

In 2025, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation published Francis Bacon, Interwoven Lives, to which Eddy Batache contributed an extended recollection entitled ‘Francis Bacon: Twilight and Serenity’. Just a few weeks ago, we completed another book written in collaboration with him, Francis Bacon: The Naked Reality, in which Eddy recalls various conversations with his friend Francis on the themes of realism and reality. This publication is currently in the process of being printed and will be published in March, but Eddy was able to approve the proofs and was very proud of the finished result. I am equally proud to have been able to produce this book, with which Eddy will leave an indelible mark.

Eddy Batache will remain in our thoughts forever and will be deeply missed by all of us at the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation.

Majid Boustany
Founder | Director of the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation