CHRONOLOGY

1910s

1909
Born on 28 October in Dublin, 63 Lower Baggot Street.

1915
Moves to London where his father works at the Record Office for the Territorial Force during WWI.

I was only five, and I was in Ireland, but I remember my father telling us the war had started. Then we came to London, because he was working in the War Office or something of that kind. We lived near Kensington Gardens, and I remember they used to spray the grass with phosphoresence. They imagined that the Zeppelins would see it during their raids and think that it was the lights of London, so the bombs would be dropped on Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens or something – which was a mad idea.


Richard Cork, Face to Face Interviews with Artists, (London: Tate Publishing, 2015), p. 35.

Clip from Francis Bacon and the Brutality of Fact, dir. by Michael Blackwood, 1987 © Michael Blackwood Productions, www.michaelblackwoodproductions.com, 2017

1918
The Bacon family returns to Ireland but continues to move between Ireland and England, and within the two countries.

The thing I appreciate from Ireland is the kind of freedom of life.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 68.

1920s

1926–1929
Leaves home and travels to London, Berlin and Paris. Visits Pablo Picasso exhibition at the Chez Paul Rosenberg gallery in 1927.

I went to Paris for a short time. While there I saw at Rosenberg’s an exhibition of Picasso, and at that moment I thought, well I will try and paint too.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 186.

I think probably the best human cry in painting was made by Poussin [The Massacre of the Innocents, 1628–29] [...] which is at Chantilly. And I remember I was once with a family for about three months living very near there, trying to learn French, and I went a great deal to Chantilly and I remember this picture always made a terrific impression on me.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), pp. 34–35.

1929
Settles in London to become an interior designer.

1930s

1930
Initial encounter with the artist and mentor Roy de Maistre. Begins to concentrate more exclusively on painting.

When I was young it wasn’t the dealers who helped me. I had friends who encouraged me. When you’re young, you can always find people who are interested in you and what you’re doing.


Michel Archimbaud, Francis Bacon In Conversation with Michel Archimbaud, (London/New York: Phaidon Press, 2010), p. 21.

1932
Meets Eric Hall, partner and patron.

1933
First art world recognition for Crucifixion.

1934
Sets up Transition Gallery and exhibition in Sunderland House, Curzon Street.

1936
Rejected by the International Surrealist Exhibition.

As a matter of fact, my relationship with Surrealism is a little complicated. I think I have been influenced by what the movement represents in terms of revolt against the establishment, in politics, religion and the arts, but my pictures haven’t shown any direct influence.


Michel Archimbaud, Francis Bacon In Conversation with Michel Archimbaud, (London/New York: Phaidon Press, 2010), p. 128.

1937
Exhibits at 'Young British Painters' at Thos. Agnew & Sons. After that paints little and destroys most of his work until 1943.

1940s

1939–1943
Serves in the Red Cross and the ARP. Lives in London and Steep, Hampshire.

1944
Commits fully to painting.

1945
Breakthrough with Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, which is shown at Lefevre Gallery, London.

Well, there have been so very many great pictures in European art of the Crucifixion that it’s a magnificent armature on which you can hang all types of feeling and sensation.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 44.

1946
Stays mainly in Monaco for the next four years, where he starts painting on the unprimed side of the canvas.

I remember when I lived once for a long time in Monte Carlo and I became obsessed by the casino and I spent whole days there – and there you could go in at ten o’clock in the morning and needn’t come out until about four o’clock the following morning. And I remember one afternoon I went in there, and I was playing on three different tables, and I heard these echoes. And I was playing rather small stakes, but by the end of the afternoon chance had been very much on my side and I ended up with about sixteen hundred pounds, which was a lot of money for me then. Well, I immediately took a villa, and I stocked it with drink and all the food that I could buy in, but this chance didn’t last very long, because in about ten days‘ time I could hardly buy my fare back to London from Monte Carlo. But it was a marvellous ten days and I had an enormous number of friends.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 51.

I feel I want to win, but then I feel exactly the same thing in painting. I feel I want to win even if I always lose.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 51.

1948
Signed by the newly opened Hanover Gallery. First commercial success.

They didn’t want me to be a painter, they thought I was just a drifter, especially my mother. It was only when she began to realize that I was making money out of [...] it that we made any contact and she altered her attitude.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 71.

Clip from Francis Bacon and the Brutality of Fact, dir. by Michael Blackwood, 1987
© Michael Blackwood Productions, www.michaelblackwoodproductions.com, 2017

1949
Starts concentrating on the human figure.

I think art is an obsession with life and after all, as we are human beings, our greatest obsession is with ourselves.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 63.

1950s

1950–1952
Travels to South Africa. Beginning of turbulent relationship with Peter Lacy in 1952.

1954
Represents Britain at Venice Biennale alongside Lucian Freud, Reg Butler and Ben Nicholson. Travels to Italy.

Painting in this sense tends towards a complete interlocking of image and paint, so that the image is the paint and vice versa.


Francis Bacon, 'Francis Bacon: Matthew Smith - A Painter's Tribute', Matthew Smith: Paintings from 1909 to 1952, exhibition catalogue, (London: Tate Gallery, 1953), p. 12.

1956
Divides his time between London and Tangier until 1961 to be with Lacy. In Morocco he meets William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.

1958
Leaves Hanover Gallery for Marlborough Fine Arts.

1959–1960
Lives briefly in St Ives, Cornwall.

1960s

1961
Moves to 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington, London, to live and work there for the rest of his life.

I work much better in chaos, chaos for me breeds images.


The BBC Southbank Show: The Life and Career of Francis Bacon, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, dir. David Hinton, 1985, 54 mins.

1962
Retrospective at Tate Gallery, which coincides with Lacy’s death. First interview with David Sylvester.

1963
Retrospective at Guggenheim Museum, New York. George Dyer, lover and muse, enters his life.

1964
First catalogue raisonné published by Ronald Alley and John Rothenstein.

1965
Travels to Athens on the Orient Express with George Dyer and John Deakin.

1965–1970
International success with shows in Hamburg, Stockholm, Dublin, Paris, London and New York.

I think the only thing that keeps me going on is that I want to work – but work, I may say, for no reason. I just work; it still excites me to work. [...] I like the possibilities of invention and the possibilities of something happening. Not because I think they've got value but because they excite me.


David Sylvester, Looking Back at Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), p. 232.

1968
Travels to New York to attend the opening of his show at Marlborough-Gerson Gallery.

1970s

1971
Retrospective at Grand Palais, Paris. Death of George Dyer, in whose memory Bacon paints series of 'Black Triptychs'. Publication of John Russell’s monograph Francis Bacon.

After all, I’ve had a very unfortunate life, because all the people I’ve been really fond of have died. And you don’t stop thinking about them; time doesn’t heal.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 76.

1974
Befriends John Edwards.

1975
Buys apartment in Paris, 14, rue de Birague.
Retrospective at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the first for a living artist.

I enjoyed Monte Carlo and I love Paris so much that when I had a studio there, I couldn’t work as much as I should have because I went out all the time, just to look at the town.


Michel Archimbaud, Francis Bacon In Conversation with Michel Archimbaud, (London/New York: Phaidon Press, 2010), p. 168.

1977
Exhibition at Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris.

1980s

1981
First publication in French, of Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon Logique de la Sensation.

I want very, very much the thing that Valéry said – to give the sensation without the boredom of its conveyance.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 65.

1983
Exhibition at National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

1985
Honoured with second retrospective at Tate Gallery.

I suppose that I’m not short of images at all; I have thousands of them. That’s not a problem. I don’t see why it should be a problem for a painter – for any real painter. By saying that, I don’t think that I’m a real painter either, but I happen to be very, very full of images.


David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), p. 166.

1986
Visits Berlin with John Edwards.

1988
Retrospective at New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

1990s

1991
Last recorded interview with Richard Cork.

I certainly hope I’ll go on till I drop dead.


Richard Cork, Face to Face Interviews with Artists, (London: Tate Publishing, 2015), p. 39.

1992
Dies on 28 April in Madrid.

If one manages to achieve something in one’s life which gives it a meaning, the way in which you achieve it and the area in which you express yourself have no importance at all. As it is, it’s so rare to manage to give any meaning to your life, and it’s so good if you do succeed.


Michel Archimbaud, Francis Bacon In Conversation with Michel Archimbaud, (London/New York: Phaidon Press, 2010), p. 106.

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