Lithograph on velin paper. Paper Size: 15 x 11 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Condition: Very good/excellent, consistent with age. Notes: From the folio, Derriere le miroir, N deg 162, 1966. Published by Maeght Editeur, Paris, under the direction of Aime Maeght, Editeur, Paris; printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, 1966. Excerpted from the folio (translated from French), This issue of "Behind the Mirror", dedicated to Francis Bacon, includes a luxury edition printed in CL numbered examples on velin de Rives. Additional notes: Excerpted from a Christie's, New York lot essay, The life span of Derriere le Miroir was thirty-five years. Publication began in 1946. Aime Maeght, initiator of Derriere le Miroir, had already made few attempts to start publications illustrated with fine printed lithographs in colours in the years prior to the launch of Derriere le Miroir. The name, Derriere le Miroir was suggested by Jacques Kober, manager of Galerie Maeght. The gallery had opened in 1945; the first number of Derriere le Miroir was released a year later. For this first issue Geer van Velde was invited to create lithographs to illustrate the publication. The lithographs in the first issue was printed by Mourlot, Paris. The first three issues of Derriere le Miroir were unsuccessful for Maeght as far as the edition size-the initial print-runs were far too large. From 30,000 for the first issue, the number was taken down to 10,000 for numbers two and three, until Derriere le Miroir number four was published in an edition of 1500. Maeght instituted a policy whereby unsold issues were recycled and used for the fabrication of new paper for the coming editions-this served to both conserve resources and also usually result in ultimate edition sizes far less than 1,500. With number four, the permanent format for Derriere le Miroir was established. Lithographs in colours were key; text was limited to comments on the featuring artist's exhibition taking place in the Galerie Maeght, and this catalogue format was defining to Derriere le Miroir. Galerie Maeght took on the leading role in Paris and presented all main artists including Braque, Matisse, Chagall, Leger, Bonnard, Chillida and many more. So too did Derriere le Miroir. The idea of a magazine was meanwhile still on the mind of Aime Maeght. He found an insert as a solution. Two, and later four, pages of art review were inserted from 1952 onwards. In 1968 this find had ripened to independency and the dream of Aime Maeght was now a tangible fact named l'Art vivant. Derriere le Miroir was on it's own again. Over 250 issues in a row. At that point publisher Aime Maeght wished to make a mark with the publication of an hommage to all who once contributed to the magazine which came in the form of issue number 250, but was delayed by the death of Aime Maeght. It was published after number 253 in 1982 and became a tribute to Aime and Marguerite Maeght and 35 years of friendship with artists and poets. The era of Derriere le Miroir was closed with that final publication. FRANCIS BACON (1909-1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. He said that he saw images "in series", and his work, which numbers in the region of 590 extant paintings along with many others he destroyed, typically focused on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats. His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on single motifs; including the 1930s Picasso-influenced bio-morphs and Furies, the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the 1950s "screaming popes," the mid-to-late 1950s animals and lone figures, the early 1960s crucifixions, the mid-to-late 1960s portraits of friends, the 1970s self-portraits, and the cooler, more technical 1980s paintings. Bacon did not begin to paint until his late twenties, having drifted in the late 1920s and early 1930s as an interior decorator, bon vivant and gambler. He said that his artistic career was delayed because he spent too long looking for subject matter that could sustain his interest. His breakthrough came with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition. From the mid-1960s, he mainly produced portraits of friends and drinking companions, either as single, diptych or triptych panels. Following the suicide of his lover George Dyer in 1971 (memorialised in his Black Triptychs, and a number of posthumous portraits), his art became more sombre, inward-looking and preoccupied with the passage of time and death. The climax of his later period is marked by the masterpieces Study for Self-Portrait (1982) and Study for a Self-Portrait-Triptych, 1985-86. Despite his existentialist and bleak outlook, Bacon was charismatic, articulate and well-read. A bon vivant, he spent his middle age eating, drinking and gambling in London's Soho with like-minded friends including Lucian Freud (although they fell out in the mid-1970s, for reasons neither ever explained), John Deakin, Muriel Belcher, Henrietta Moraes, Daniel Farson, Tom Baker and Jeffrey Bernard. After Dyer's suicide, he largely distanced himself from this circle, and while still socially active and his passion for gambling and drinking continued, he settled into a platonic and somewhat fatherly relationship with his eventual heir, John Edwards.Since his death, Bacon's reputation has grown steadily, and his work is among the most acclaimed, expensive and sought-after on the art market. In the late 1990s, a number of major works, previously assumed destroyed, including early 1950s pope paintings and 1960s portraits, re-emerged to set record prices at auction. In November 2013, Francis Bacon's painting, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, triptych, sold for $142.4 million USD at Christie's New York, setting a world record for the artist.

Very good/excellent, consistent with age