Bidders spend freely on archive rescued from the studio of Francis Bacon
Apr. 27, 2007
( WOKING, Surrey, U.K.) – Previously unseen paintings, personal letters, diaries, photographs and other private documentary material from the famously chaotic London studio of Francis Bacon, the most important British artist of the 20th century, sold for a staggering total of $2,268,900 Tuesday. The sale total, which had been expected to be around $100,000, is a record for the Surrey fine art auctioneers Ewbank. Ewbank spokesman Christopher Proudlove said, "The Internet and LiveAuctioneers.com played a huge part in the auction, providing worldwide exposure and drawing very strong underbids." LiveAuctioneers.com facilitated live online bidding for the sale.
Ewbank had been commissioned to sell the archive by Mac Robertson, who intervened when Bacon instructed workmen to throw the material into a dumpster. The sale came just four days short of the 15th anniversary of Bacon's death.
About 100 buyers crowded into Ewbank's saleroom, joining Internet bidders and dozens more on 10 telephone lines to compete for just 45 lots, ignoring pre-sale estimates and bidding with gusto. "Bids were coming from everywhere," said auctioneer Chris Ewbank. "There were at least six to eight bidders on every lot and it was a challenge keeping up with them. Our estimates look tame by comparison with the results, but we found it impossible to value the material as there was no precedent to help us."
"Major works by Francis Bacon can sell for many millions but there have been few, if any, auctions of the kind of material in this archive. We anticipated the sale would be of interest to art historians, and we hoped it would enable buyers and collectors of modest means to acquire works directly from Bacon's studio but we were staggered by the response."
The most valuable lot in the sale proved to be one of three oil portraits in the sale of an unidentified figure on a green background. It sold for an amazing $940,000 and had been estimated at just $24,000-36,000. The portrait had certain similarities to those of Lucien Freud but the sitter might also have been Bacon's lover George Dyer, whom the artist painted probably more than anyone else both before and after Dyer's death.
The second-highest price of the evening was the $610,500 paid for one of three studies of a dog at rest. Bids from buyers in the room, on the telephone and on the Internet drove the price way beyond the $4,000-6,000 estimate. Two other similar sketches sold for $70,500 and $42,300 respectively.
Two other portraits by Bacon also sailed past their estimates. One showing the ghostly shape of a man's head on a dark background sold for $100,080 while another sold for $82,250. Each had been estimated at $3,000-4,000. The latter portrait was thickly painted and very dark. It was Bacon's habit to seek to improve his paintings by adding to them later, but this piece appeared to have been finally abandoned to become a palette for mixing oil paints on the reverse.
It was also Bacon's practice to self-edit and destroy a large part of what he painted. This sale included four mutilated portraits in which the facial features had been cut from the canvas, leaving a central hole. Each had been estimated at $3,000-5,000 but the most expensive sold for $94,000. Two of the others each sold for $70,500 and the fourth for $16,500.
Lost to the art world for nearly 30 years, the archive was destined to be thrown out as rubbish by an incensed Bacon after he discovered electricians working in his Reece Mews studio had disturbed his workspace.
Mac Robertson, who was overseeing the work, arrived to calm Bacon down.
As he watched the material being thrown into the dumpster, he asked Bacon if he could keep some of it and he filled three garbage bags and put them into the back of his car.
"If it had not been for the intervention of Mac Robertson, Bacon would have discarded this collection and it would have been lost to the art world," said Ewbank. "A photograph included in the archive clearly showed the chaotic circumstances in which Bacon worked, but far from being rubbish, the material in the sale was a compelling and often poignant link to this artistic genius." The photograph sold for $2,116, more than three times its estimate.
The sale was a unique opportunity for collectors of more modest means to acquire something from the studio, such as a postcard addressed to Bacon and postmarked 1970 that was sent by Richard Hamilton from Whitley Bay. It sold for $1,880, while a check for $20 signed by Bacon, and receipts -- including one for $1,000 to Wheelers, one of Bacon's favorite restaurants, and another to his mother for $200 -- sold for $1,292.
An unpublished, inscribed photograph showing Bacon with his lover Peter Lacy together on a terrace sold for $1,410. Bacon's 1971 pocket diary recording the death and burial of George Dyer sold for $4,700.
Even transparency photographs of Bacon's paintings and photographs he used in his pictures, which he preferred to life models, were sought after. A group of three transparencies from a triptych and a fourth of a portrait which had been estimated at $400-800 sold for $5,406. The most expensive among a group of photographic contact sheets by an unknown New York photographer overturned a $600-1,00 estimate to sell for $21,620.
Items from the completed sale can be viewed on www.LiveAuctioneers.com, where upcoming sales from Ewbank will also be posted.
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