Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon began his career as designer of furniture and carpets. In the 1930s, he started exhibiting his free work in various galleries in London, but later he destroyed much of this early work. It was only after the Second World War that Bacon started exhibiting again in galleries.
Human beings are the subject of his paintings. Often these people are anatomically misshapen and their shapes are vague, almost erased. Extremely lonely and tormented figures find themselves isolated and trapped within themselves in a well-defined space. Bacon created these spaces by placing frames around the figures which at the same time act as a closed cage. From 1950, Bacon produced a number of series of paintings with the pope and the cardinal at his subject. The style shows an affinity with the traditional portraiture of Velásquez, the late Rembrandt and Van Gogh.