\paperw5100 \margr0\margl0 \plain \f1 \ATXsh255 British painter.\ATXsh4607 \par
\ATXsh255 Born in Dublin to English parents, Francis Bacon started out as an interior decorator a
nd did not begin to paint until 1929, after a visit to Paris and a stay in Berlin where he had gotten to know the work of the exponents of German realism, Grosz, Dix and Beckmann. The lack of success that marked the early part of the artistÆs career led Bac
on to move away from painting, which he did not take up again seriously until 1942. In 1944 he painted the \i Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion\i0 (Tate Gallery, London), whose monstrous figures created a sensation. These were follo
wed by numerous portraits and pictures inspired by works of the past, all characterized by the distortion of image at which the artist arrived through study of the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge and stills from the films of Bu±uel and Eisenstein. The
influence of earlier painters like Munch or van Gogh can be discerned in the expressionistic characteristics of his figures, which speak to us of ostracism, loneliness and the existential anguish of humanity. Among his works, it is worth mentioning his s
tudies after VelßzquezÆs portrait of \i Innocent X\i0 (1953, private collection, New York; 1962, Marlborough Fine Art, London) and the famous interiors in which he set his portraits (\i Self-portrait\i0 , 1973, Marlborough Gallery, New York; \i George Dyer
\i0 , 1968, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid; \i The Wrestlers\i0 , 1980, Tokyo, private collection).\ATXsh4607
