Lot 2033 email save

From the Studio of Francis Bacon; photograph

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'Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd., Dover Street, London; Black and white photographic print, "Figure writing reflected in a mirror, 1976", with oval yellow paint mark, stamped on reverse, and marked in pencil 69311. This photograph provides interesting and very clear illustration of the way in which Bacon might seek to add to, or change, paintings. This picture would have been sent to the Marlborough Gallery, and a photograph would have been returned to Bacon. In this case the photograph has acquired a yellow oval paint mark. The picture has then obviously been recalled to the Studio and re-worked, incorporating the yellow paint mark and other minor alterations such as writing on the pad and changes to the crumpled newspaper on the floor.
Bacon's views on chance and the effects of its inclusion in finished works are well known. He would sometimes send a painting to Marlborough, subsequently get it back in the Studio and later go on with it. Bacon was also acutely aware of the fact that smudged footprints, finger prints and paint marks acquired in the Studio could change the character of a painting. The finished painting is illustrated for comparison purposes in the Tate Gallery catalogue for the Exhibition of 22 May - 18th August 1985. Illustration no. 99. Examples of the incorporation of paint marks into finished paintings can be seen amongst items in this sale in, for example, lot 2018 where white paint marks were added to Portrait of George Dyer in a mirror.
Provenance: The Robertson Collection

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