Out of the Cage, The Art of Isabel Rawsthorne, by Carol Jacobi, published by The Estate of Francis Bacon in association with Thames & Hudson, with financial support from the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation, is part of the Studies in Art series edited by Martin Harrison, author of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné.
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
