Paintings

Bacon recalled his first encounter with the work of Picasso, which he said occurred in 1927, as a kind of epiphany, despite which several years elapsed before its impact was manifested in his paintings. The leaves at the bottom left of ‘Watercolour’ and the late-cubist forms in general were derived from Fernand Léger, the classical portico from Giorgio de Chirico, and the sections of brick wall from Jean Lurçat’s Smyrne I (1926, private collection). Bacon was aligning himself with European modernism, although the stylised diver is typical of Parisian art déco. At this stage there is little distinction between Bacon’s designs for rugs and screens and his independent art works.

‘Watercolour’, and the next three of Bacon’s earliest extant works, was bought by Eric Allden, who also owned three of Bacon’s rugs. Allden was Bacon’s first patron, and his support was crucial for both the design studio and the paintings.

The title ‘Watercolour’ is simply descriptive. Much later, a black and white photograph of the painting was captioned ‘Leaf and Figure’ by Valerie Beston, of Marlborough Fine Art; while it is doubtful that this title was assigned by Bacon, it has the advantage of distinguishing two of the pictorial elements.