1940
On 1 June, Bacon’s father Eddy dies in Bradford Peverell, Dorset. His will designates Francis as sole executor. A letter from his cousin Diana Watson, dated 3 June 1940, is sent to Bacon in Monaco to inform him of his father’s death.
In December, Bacon is living in Bedales Lodge, Steep, Hampshire, with Eric Hall.
1943
Bacon is discharged from Air Raid Precautions, his asthma having worsened.
He moves into the ground floor of 7 Cromwell Place, South Kensington, London, once the residence of the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.
1944
Bacon finishes his first triptych, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), which he considers one of his major works.
1945
In April, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) and Figure in a Landscape (1945) are exhibited at a group show at the Lefevre Gallery, London. The triptych makes waves among London art connoisseurs and prefigures the artist’s radical and uncompromising body of work.
1946
In February, Figure Study I (1945–46) and Figure Study II (1945–46) are exhibited at a group show at the Lefevre Gallery.
Graham Sutherland introduces Bacon to Erica Brausen, who is working at the Redfern Gallery. On 13 June, she buys his Painting 1946 for £200. With the proceeds from the sale, Bacon, now aged 36, moves to the Hotel Ré, Monaco, with Eric Hall and Jessie Lightfoot. They become residents of Monaco on 5 July. The Principality remains Bacon’s main residence from July 1946 until the early 1950s. While there, he begins working on his first pope paintings, for which Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (c. 1650) is the chief inspiration. From the Hotel Ré, he writes to Graham Sutherland and Duncan MacDonald, the director of the Lefevre Gallery, about his new body of work. Bacon completes his first pope painting, Landscape with Pope/Dictator (1946), in this year
On 1 November, Bacon goes to Paris to attend the International Exhibition of Modern Art organised by UNESCO, which includes Painting 1946. Bacon’s work is shown beside artworks by artists such as Roy de Maistre, John Minton, Henry Moore, Rodrigo Moynihan, Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland.
1947
In the spring, Bacon moves to Villa Minerve, 2 avenue de la Costa, Monaco with Jessie Lightfoot and Eric Hall.
In April, Graham Sutherland and his wife Kathleen, accompanied by the artist Eardley Knollys, stay at the Hotel Welcome, Villefranche-sur-Mer, for five weeks. They regularly meet up with Bacon in Monaco and he introduces them to the Monte Carlo Casino.
In late September, Sutherland and his wife return to the Hotel Welcome for a five-week stay, this time with the painter Lucian Freud. They visit Bacon in Monaco.
On 6 October, Bacon’s, Jessie Lightfoot’s and Eric Hall’s Monaco residency cards are renewed for a year. They are now living at the Villa Souka-Hati, boulevard des Bas-Moulins (present-day avenue Princesse-Grace).
In early October, Bacon’s mother moves to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Bacon is to make regular trips to see her.
1948
Bacon frequently travels between Monaco and London until early 1950.
He meets Muriel Belcher, who has just opened the Colony Room on Dean Street, Soho. In this bar, Bacon is to surround himself with his ‘court’, made up of habitués and a circle of artist friends such as Lucian Freud, John Minton, Frank Auerbach and Denis Wirth-Miller, for nearly 40 years.
Erica Brausen becomes Bacon’s first art dealer and helps him take an important step in his career by arranging the acquisition of Painting 1946 by Alfred Barr, for £280, for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This is Bacon’s first painting to enter a museum collection.
From November 1948 to spring 1949, Bacon and Jessie Lightfoot remain at the Villa Souka-Hati in Monaco, but Eric Hall is no longer registered as a Monaco resident.
Around this time, in Monaco, Bacon begins to paint on the unprimed side of the canvas.
1949
Denis Wirth-Miller informs Bacon about the collection of Eadweard Muybridge collotypes The Human Figure in Motion and Animal Locomotion at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
From spring 1949 to the early 1950s, Bacon rents the Villa Frontalière in Monaco. He sets up his studio on the top floor.
8 November – 10 December: twelve paintings by Bacon, including the ‘Heads’ series the artist began in the Villa Souka-Hati in Monaco in 1948, are shown at the Hanover Gallery in London, alongside drawings by Robin Ironside.
In December, Robert Melville’s article ‘Francis Bacon’ is published in the literary magazine Horizon.
On 8 December, Bacon writes to Sonia Orwell from Monaco.
On 24 December, Bacon and the Sutherlands spend Christmas Eve together in Monaco.
