Francis Bacon was born in Dublin, the son of a racehorse trainer. He had little conventional schooling of any kind and no formal training in art. Bacon went to London in 1929 but had limited success with his early paintings, most of which he subsequently destroyed. By the mid-1930s, he was becoming disillusioned with art and after 1937 he dropped out of the scene until 1945.In that year, however, he suddenly became famous. His Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, shown at the Lefevre Gallery, London, caused a sensation with its nightmarish imagery of half-human, half-animal creatures. "Visitors were brought up short," wrote the critic John Russell, "by images so unrelievedly awful that the mind shut with a snap at the sight of them".
Bacon's work was now regularly exhibited, but general acceptance was slow in coming; the subject matter was too unsettling. Typical of his paintings in the 1950s were his Screaming Popes, a series of pictures based on Velázquez's serene portrait of Pope Innocent X, but distorted into images of hysterical fear and alienation. Some of his figures were shown alongside sides of raw meat. Many appear to be enclosed in glass boxes, suggesting isolation and despair. In 1962, Bacon's reputation was finally assured with a major exhibition of his paintings at the Tate Gallery. Critics and the public alike admired his ability to use oils with a sumptuous richness to express images of horror or degradation. The exhibition travelled to several European countries and Bacon began to be recognised as one of the most powerful and individual figurative artists since World War 2.
Bacon was always very articulate about his work and his perceptive comments have been recorded in conversations with the art critic David Sylvester. "Art is a method of opening up areas of feeling," he said, "rather than merely an illustration of an object".
In his later paintings, mainly portraits and self-portraits, the human face and body are subjected to extremes of contortion and distortion. The paint is used to smudge and twist the subjects into formless, slug-like creatures of nightmare fantasy. Bacon's work was shown in numerous exhibitions, notably a retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1985 when Alan Bowness, director of the gallery, called him "the greatest living painter".
A heavy drinker and gambler, Bacon's personal life was dissolute. Yet his dedication and commitment could only be admired: although his paintings commanded huge prices he cared hardly at all for material possessions. "I want to die as I was born: with nothing," he said in 1985. "I just want my work to be better".
