Publications

Featuring over 15,000 unpublished words from Bacon, new revelations from associates, recent discoveries and rare photographs of destroyed works, this landmark publication reveals an abundance of new insights into Francis Bacon’s life and approach to his art.

In addition to contributions by Elsa Boustany, Majid Boustany, Dr Margarita Cappock, Dr Rebecca Daniels, Milan Garcin, Michel Giniès, Martin Harrison, Yves Peyré, Sophie Pretorius and Jacques Saraben, it features a previously unpublished conversation between Yves Peyré, a writer and close friend of Francis Bacon, and Majid Boustany, who talks about his first encounter with Francis Bacon’s work and how he came to set up the Foundation.

In English. A French edition was also published under the title Francis Bacon sous un nouveau jour.

Bacon’s works often lost and gained a great deal after leaving his studio, as he frequently found ways to alter, improve or destroy his paintings, even as they hung on the walls of gallerists and collectors. From the sudden absence of a cigarette in Study of a Portrait of a Man (1969) to the removal of Richard Chopping’s central figure in the middle panel of Triptych 1974‒77, Bacon’s revisions vary dramatically in scale and intention. Diptychs become triptychs, seemingly important details disappear without ceremony, and figures flit between works like ghosts.

Many artists make changes to their paintings while they are in progress, but in few instances do photographic records exist. Francis Bacon’s oeuvre provides a rare exception. With first and final versions presented side by side for the first time, Revisions: Francis Bacon in the Act of Painting provides detailed, completely new insights into Bacon the creator: his process, his intentions, and what does and doesn’t make a ‘Bacon’, according to the artist himself.

In English

Watch a video about the book

This bilingual catalogue in French and English featuring contributions by Elsa Boustany, Fabienne Grasser-Fulchéri and Dr Rebecca Daniels explores a little-known aspect of Francis Bacon’s practice: his work as a furniture designer in the early 1930s, the sources of inspiration for his designs and the influence of this period on his paintings. Bacon himself said that he was greatly influenced by French design and that post-Cubism and Bauhaus had a profound impact on him.

There is also an article by Martin Harrison, the editor, about the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation’s collection and activities, which focuses specifically on a Jean Shepeard sketch of Francis Bacon which is now in the MB Art Collection, following its purchase at the sale of Doreen Kern’s collection (Kern had inherited it from Jean Shepeard, who was her aunt).

In addition to these enlightening contributions, Bacon Review includes many hitherto unseen photographs from the artist’s family archive and several surprises that will delight fans of Bacon’s work and provide new insights into his art.

In English

The journal can be ordered at https://www.francis-bacon.com/baconreview

Each copy includes a numbered stamped print of a photograph of Francis Bacon in his studio at 7 Reece Mews, London, taken in 1980 by the British photographer Jane Bown.

The book was printed in a numbered limited edition of 270 ‒ the number of items (photographs, books and correspondence) connected with the American photographer Peter Beard found in Bacon’s Reece Mews studio. Bacon met Beard in the mid-1960s, and they found they had many shared interests. As photographer, muse and loyal friend, Beard was often a source of inspiration for Bacon’s art.

Only eighty copies of this book were offered for sale (at a price of €295). To order a copy, please contact the Foundation.

Continuing in the revelatory mode established by Inside Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon: Shadows contains six essays on diverse topics, interpretative as well as factual, which fulfil the fundamental aim of the series – to rethink Bacon’s art from new perspectives.

Beautifully presented, with previously unseen photographs and around 120 colour illustrations, this book boldly treads compelling new ground, offering startling insights into the works of one of the 20th century’s most highly-regarded artists.

Martin Harrison presents some exciting hitherto unseen photographs and includes a tribute to a major, if under-acknowledged, Bacon scholar, David Boxer (1946–2017). Christopher Bucklow’s essay ‘Bacon’s Afterlife’ studies the contrast between Bacon’s art and the art of our own times and examines Bacon in the light of Romantic Modernism’s confidence in the unconscious as a source of inspiration. Amanda Harrison’s essay ‘Bacon’s Occult Traces’ investigates the effect of occult influences through previous hidden or unrecognised evidence in the shadows of his paintings.

In ‘Between Francis Bacon and the Intellect’, Croatian writer and artist Stefan Haus conducts a stimulating extended study into the impact of Bacon’s paintings on the viewer, drawing on the ideas of philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Kant and Hegel. In Hugh M. Davies’ many meetings with the artist in 1973 he socialised with Bacon’s closest friends. Some of his notes were published in Francis Bacon: New Studies – Centenary Essays in 2009, but here, for the first time, Davies’s unexpurgated diary entries are published in their entirety. Passages previously considered inappropriate for publication reveal a more rounded view of Bacon as both man and artist. In her enlightening essay ‘Work on the Barry Joule Archive’, Sophie Pretorius expertly untangles the controversy that has surrounded Bacon’s supposed source material in the Barry Joule Archive. Finally, Harrison himself contributes an essay entitled ‘Lost Bacon Paintings’. Except for those which had been published while he was still living, paintings that Bacon destroyed were excluded from Martin Harrison’s Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné (2016). The reasoning was that Bacon had destroyed them because he considered them ‘failures’, and to circulate images of them carried the risk of misrepresenting him. Ultimately, the larger responsibility to make his oeuvre available to the public outweighed this decision and the thirteen as yet unknown, fascinating, if unresolved paintings were revealed in this volume.

In English

Further information about the book can be found at https://www.francis-bacon.com/shadows/

Isabel Rawsthorne (1912‒1992) was hidden in plain sight. From celebrated portraits of her in the Nationalgalerie in Berlin to her own paintings in the Tate, the artworks connected with her have kept her secrets. This book explores her fascinating life and the extraordinary art that resulted from it.

A contemporary of the Parisian and London avant-gardes, Rawsthorne’s own painting career was somewhat eclipsed by the many occasions on which her friends made her the subject of their art, notably Jacob Epstein, André Derain, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. Exhibited from the early 1930s, her startling work began to attract considerable attention in the 1940s and she was well-known in the 1950s and 1960s; but after she died, popular biographies of Giacometti and Bacon cemented her status not as an artist, but as an artist’s muse.

Rawsthorne exhibited between 1933 and 1990, usually as Isabel Lambert. Her art was a poetry of things: an emptied glass, a cut flower, a felled bird, the animal or human body, caught in ephemeral compositions. Her experiences in France encouraged her eventual rejection of neo-Romantic visions of the natural world in favour of an austere contemplation of existence. Known for her unique graphic skill, she saw the touch, mark and stroke in any media as her means of investigating ‘presence’.

This richly-illustrated book reconsiders sixty years of her art, now housed in several major public collections, in the light of her fascinating life. Jacobi explores the pre- and post-war art scene of which Isabel Rawsthorne was a part, retracing her life and art through the upheavals of the 20th century and her intense and often unconventional relationships with some of its most revered figures. More than a decade of research into Rawsthorne’s work, archives and the memories of her friends brings to light countless revelations.

In English

Further information about the book can be found at https://www.francis-bacon.com/outofthecage

Yves Peyré, a writer who was friends with Francis Bacon, has produced a remarkably comprehensive study of the artist’s life and art both in terms of analysis and as regards reproductions of paintings and drawings. He discusses the uncategorisable artist’s major contribution, from his beginnings as a designer on the eve of the 1930s to his last great triptychs from the late 1980s, offering a touching personal view of Bacon’s complex personality and extraordinary artistic output ‒ a tormented, sometimes violent body of work that reflects the artist’s inner wounds but is illuminated by his sense of colour and quest for the absolute.

Peyré’s finely-honed account indisputably offers a new approach, whose in-depth interpretations considerably broaden our view of the work. Drawing on the author’s close relationship with Francis Bacon, it takes the reader on a philosophical, poetic and artistic stroll through the various stages of an exploration that was incisive in every respect.

The six essays in this volume constitute an utterly unique multi-disciplinary study of Bacon’s life and art and disclose fascinating new information about this elusive artist. Where Francis Bacon Studies I and II reflected the application of theory-based methodologies, several of the authors of Inside Francis Bacon consider the artist through biography or the technical analysis of his paintings, in line with the editor’s intention that the Francis Bacon Studies series should embrace the widest possible range of new thinking about Bacon.

Three of the essays (those by Francesca Pipe, Sophie Pretorius and Martin Harrison) are based on archives recently added to the collection of the Estate of Francis Bacon. What they reveal has revolutionised perceptions of Bacon. Very little is known about his early life and career, and the diaries of his two earliest patrons facilitate a much deeper understanding of his formative years. They debunk many of the myths that Bacon and his apologists created in the 1980s: for instance, a museum curator confidently declared that Bacon had suffered a brutal upbringing, including whippings, but evidence published in Inside Francis Bacon seriously challenges these claims. Especially revelatory are the detailed records kept over a long period by Bacon’s doctor, Paul Brass, a generous long loan to the Estate of Francis Bacon by Ruth Brass. Sophie Pretorius’ analysis of them calls for a fundamental revision of prevailing ideas about Bacon’s character and psychology and explains the uneven production rate of his paintings.

Sarah Whitfield sheds significant new light on both Bonnard and Bacon, identifying concerns shared by the two artists that surprise as well as inform. Joyce H. Townsend draws on her scientific and technical investigations into Tate’s most important Bacon paintings and comparisons with the techniques of many other artists to advance enthrallingly fresh information about Bacon’s aims and techniques. Christopher Bucklow extends his meditations on the metaphor system in Bacon’s paintings published in Bacon and the Mind: Art, Neuroscience and Psychology (Francis Bacon Studies I). His essay reflects sometimes unexpected terms of reference ranging from William Blake to Japanese ukiyo‑e prints.

In English

Further information about the book can be found at https://www.francis-bacon.com/insidefrancisbacon

The photographs reproduced in the book are from the MB Art Collection, which holds the world’s most extensive photographic archive on Francis Bacon’s life and art. At the time of publication, the Collection contained over 700 hundred photographic prints by more than 80 photographers.

The book was printed in a numbered limited edition of 206 copies ‒ the number of the artist’s paintings shown in his solo exhibitions in France during his lifetime. A signed and numbered print of a photograph of Francis Bacon taken by the French photographer André Ostier on the boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris in 1982 is enclosed with each copy.

Only forty copies of this book were offered for sale (at a price of €295). It is now out of print.

This first-ever photographic monograph on Francis Bacon features more than 180 iconic images of the artist, many of them previously unseen, taken by over 60 photographers. All the photographs are from the MB Art Collection, which holds the world’s most extensive photographic archive relating to Francis Bacon’s life and art. At the time of publication, the photographic archive contained more than 700 prints of pictures taken by over 70 different photographers, from portraits by eminent photographers to rare snapshots taken by Bacon’s family and friends.

The portfolio of photographs covers the period from the 1920s to the 1990s and is accompanied by anecdotes and recollections by the photographers that shed light on the contexts in which the pictures were taken. This unique encounter with Bacon via the camera lens offers a new perspective on one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century.

In English

Only 300 copies of the book were offered for sale (at a price of €295). To order a copy, please contact the Foundation.

Edited by Ben Ware, it is comprised of eight essays illustrated with colour reproductions and draws together some of today’s leading philosophers and psychoanalytic critics to go beyond established readings of Bacon and open up radically new ways of thinking about his art. The essays bring Bacon into dialogue with figures such as Aristotle, Georg Hegel, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Theodor Adorno, and Martin Heidegger, and situate his work in the broader contexts of modernism and modernity.

The volume contains contributions by Howard Caygill, Gregg M. Horowitz, Darian Leader, Catherine Malabou, Dany Nobus, Renata Salecl, Ben Ware and Alenka Zupančič.

In English.

Further information about the book can be found at https://www.francis-bacon.com/francis-bacon-painting-philosophy-psychoanalysis

It was over twenty years since the last major exhibition on Francis Bacon, who loved France with a passion, had been held in France ‒ at the Centre Pompidou in 1996. ‘Francis Bacon: Books and Painting’ assembled paintings from 1971, the year of the legendary Grand Palais retrospective, to the artist’s last pictures, painted in 1992. This innovative exploration of the influence of literature on Bacon’s painting was curated by Didier Ottinger.

The exhibition catalogue, edited by Didier Ottinger and published by Éditions du Centre Pompidou, contains contributions by Miguel Egaña, Catherine Howe, Michael Peppiatt and Chris Stephens.

In French

Yves Peyré, a writer who was friends with Francis Bacon, has produced a remarkably comprehensive study of the artist’s life and art both in terms of analysis and as regards reproductions of paintings and drawings. He discusses the uncategorisable artist’s major contribution, from his beginnings as a designer on the eve of the 1930s to his last great triptychs from the late 1980s, offering a touching personal view of Bacon’s complex personality and extraordinary artistic output ‒ a tormented, sometimes violent body of work that reflects the artist’s inner wounds but is illuminated by his sense of colour and quest for the absolute.

Peyré’s finely-honed account indisputably offers a new approach, whose in-depth interpretations considerably broaden our view of the work. Drawing on the author’s close relationship with Francis Bacon, it takes the reader on a philosophical, poetic and artistic stroll through the various stages of an exploration that was incisive in every respect.

The book received the 2020 Prix Bernier awarded by the Académie des beaux-arts for an outstanding book on art. An English translation entitled Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess was published by ACC Art Books in 2020.

In French

The book draws on sources in the MB Art Collection archives to build a sensitive, lyrical portrait of Francis Bacon and his work. From reluctant words and stubborn silence, Perrine Le Querrec creates a language and vision. Studying and using archives and images are central to her writing.

‘To the question “Which writer has influenced you?” I would unhesitatingly answer, “Francis Bacon”. Although not a writer, he has always been an essential source of inspiration and guidance. I would never write “stories”: I would seek to write a language that would address the body, sensations and nervous system ‒ a language as living, as embodied as possible. Archives are sources of memory, emotion and poetry that are central to the construction of my writing, so to pay homage to Francis Bacon, a painter who used archives, photographs and all kinds of images as they evolved and decayed and acquired surface texture and depth over time, I worked from his own archives, his portraits and objects that belonged to him. These archives, preserved by a devotee of Bacon’s work, have given substance to my passion. Obsessively shadowing him, tracing him through his actions and materials, I have attempted a Study for a portrait of the artist. Through archives and poetry, I have endeavoured to get as close as possible to a flamboyant, heart-breaking, solitary yet universal creative oeuvre.’ Perrine Le Querrec

In French

Available to order on line here

Bilingual edition in French and English. Out of print.

It was edited by Martin Harrison, author of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné, who curated the exhibition, and contains contributions by nine eminent art historians: Martin Harrison, Sarah Whitfield, Amanda J. Harrison, Catherine Howe, Dr Rebecca Daniels, Dr Carol Jacobi, Dr Darren Ambrose, Dr James Wishart and Eddy Batache. The foreword was written by Majid Boustany, the founder and director of the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation.

Francis Bacon was an ardent Francophile. This was the first book to focus specifically on his close ties with France and Monaco and highlight the influence of French culture on his life and work.

Bilingual edition in French and English

Available from bookshops and on line from Heni website.

The book features contributions by two eminent art historians, Martin Harrison, author of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné, and Eddy Batache, who was a very close friend of the painter. It concludes with a detailed chronology of the artist’s life.

Bilingual edition in French and English. Out of print.