Lot 2029 email save

From the Studio of Francis Bacon; photographs

Unknown photographer New York circa 1975. Black and white photographic contact sheets. Bacon's interest in series photography and, in particular, the images of Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) is well known. Muybridge was a pioneering photographer whose work included extensive high speed photographic images of human and animal locomotion, published in two books, 'Animals in Motion' 1887 and The 'Human Figure in Motion' also 1887. Bacon was first introduced to his work in about 1945 and more than one hundred fragments from 'The Human Figure in Motion' were found in the artist's Studio after his death. Bacon is known to have commissioned and probably directed a series of contact photographs in the manner of Muybridge from an unknown New York photographer and many were found in his Studio. They were all undoubtedly part of the same commission(s) as those in this sale. (For comparison with sheets in the Lane Gallery in Dublin see the door in the background of these images in the sale and those found in the Studio.) Pen markings by Bacon show that they were used as working documents.
Bacon's thoughts on the use of photographs were expressed in 1974; "I want to isolate the image much further and take it very much further away from the photograph. I only use photographs as I would use a dictionary in a foreign language".
There are four lots of contact sheets in this sale, this being the first comprises male figures wrestling on six sheets each 16.5" x 20"
1 Forty two images with characteristic green and red felt tip pen markings, on three images.
2. Forty two images, three with red felt tip pen markings.
3, 4 and 5 Each have forty one images. Two are unmarked and one has a red circle and highlighted areas.
6. Twenty five images with no markings.
Provenance: The Robertson Collection