Displaying items by tag: Francis Bacon

Damien Hirst has unveiled his new series of paintings in Brazil, following his universally panned exhibitions at the Wallace Collection, where he showed a group of Francis Bacon inspired skull paintings and his 2012  exhibition of "Parrot Pictures" at White Cube Bermondsey. For his latest painting exhibition, Hirst has created what he describes as "portraits of living cities," the "Black Scalpel Cityscapes" are made up of vast numbers of surgical instruments that combine to create bird’s-eye views of urbanized areas from around the world. With the series, Hirst investigates subjects pertaining to the sometimes-disquieting realities of modern life – surveillance, urbanisation, globalisation and the virtual nature of conflict – as well as elements relating to the universal human condition, such as our inability to arrest physical decay.

In the paintings, manmade features and natural elements such as buildings, rivers and roads are depicted in scalpels as well as razor blades, hooks, iron filings and safety-pins, all set against black backgrounds.

Seventy paintings that span the 15th to the 20th centuries from the collection of the Spanish investor Juan Abelló and his wife Ana Gamazo, including works by El Greco, Francisco Goya, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, are due to go on show in the US for the first time. “The Abelló Collection: A Modern Taste for European Masters” will open at the Meadows Museum at the Southern Methodist University in Texas next year, 18 April-2 August.

A key work in the show is Francis Bacon’s "Triptych," 1983, one of the artist’s final works in the format, which Abelló acquired in 2008 through a private sale.

On Tuesday, October 28, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation was inaugurated by Prince Albert of Monaco. The opening of the private non-profit institute coincided with the 105th anniversary of the birth of the postwar British artist. Located in Monaco, the foundation brings together over 2,000 Bacon-related items, including artworks, photographs, works on paper, and working documents, as well as examples of the artist’s furniture and rug designs from his early career. Some of these objects have never been publicly displayed.

The Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation was established by the Lebanese-born Swiss property developer Majid Boustany to promote a deeper understanding of the work and life of Bacon worldwide.

A self-portrait by Pablo Picasso that was created in 1901, and has not previously been exhibited in public before, will go on display in central London this week. The exhibition will include works by Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and great British painter Francis Bacon. The self-portrait by Picasso depicts the Spanish artist and sculptor at the age of 30, looking directly at the viewer while painting by candlelight.

The "Self" exhibition runs until 13 December at the Ordovas gallery, and features a number of works either not seen in public before - or for a considerable amount of time; including Francis Bacon's self-portrait, which is one of the artist's first studies of a single head.

A major portrait by Francis Bacon will be one of the highlights of the evening sale of Post-War and contemporary art in New York. Painted in 1960, "Seated Figure" stems from Bacon's total obsession with Velazquez's "Portrait of Pope Innocent X" and stands as an exceptional example of the artist’s painterly practice. It is a rare occasion for a major painting from Bacon's Papal series to be offered for auction, having remained unseen by the public for 35 years before being acquired by its present owner in 1996, "Seated Figure (Red Cardinal)" is a crowning culmination of Francis Bacon’s renowned Papal series. This major work will be on view in London before being sold at auction in New York on November 12th.

Luxuriant swathes of cream, violet, and aquamarine form the Pope’s features, highlighted by delicate gossamer-like sweeps of pure, bright white that form the folds of his silk cloaks.

In Spring 2015, Paris’ Centre Pompidou plans to open a temporary outpost in Malága, Spain, the birthplace of Pablo Picasso. “Pop-Up Pompidou” will present rotating exhibitions pulled from the Centre Pompidou’s permanent collection -- the largest modern and contemporary art collection in Europe. So far, Max Ernst’s “The Imbecile,” Francis Bacon’s “Self-Portrait,” and Picasso’s “The Flowered Hat 10/04/1940” are among the pieces expected to go on view at the pop-up museum.

The Malága City Hall will provide the institution with the iconic building “El Cubo,” or The Cube, a large glass-and-steel structure located on the city’s port, which is among the oldest ports in the world

Since Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” (1969) sold at Christie’s for $142.4 million in New York last November a rash of paintings by that Irish-born artist have emerged for sale. The auction at Sotheby’s on Monday night, which kicked off the contemporary art sales here, will be remembered for buoyant bidding on a triptych by Bacon from 1964, which brought $45.4 million, well above its $33.6 million high estimate.

Four telephone bidders fought for the painting, “Three Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (on Light Ground),” which depicts the artist’s lover and was painted at the height of their affair.

Madrid's top art museum the Prado unveiled a major show Monday about the master painter El Greco, exploring his influence on modern greats such as Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock.

"El Greco and Modern Painting" is part of a year-long series of big exhibitions to mark the 400th anniversary of the Greek-born master's death.

El Greco's works languished in obscurity until the late 19th century, but once collectors noticed them he became one of the most important figures in the history of art, influencing Picasso at the start of the Cubist movement.

A logjam of giant names in the arts comes together in one small canvas to be auctioned next month: Lucian Freud, painted by Francis Bacon, and owned by the late Roald Dahl.

Dahl died in 1990, Bacon in 1992, and Freud in 2011. Although they later fell out, the young Bacon and Freud were close friends, who painted one another's portraits – and Dahl was a great admirer and friend of Bacon's.

The renowned children's author bought this Study for Head of Lucian Freud in 1967, the year it was painted, for £2,850 with the proceeds from one of his most famous books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It will be sold next month at Christie's estimated at up to £12m.

This past November, Francis Bacon’s triptych portrait Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) sold for $142.4 million at Christie’s, setting an artist’s record and becoming the most expensive work ever sold at auction. Less than a month later, the massive contemporary masterpiece turned up on loan, not at a modern-day art mecca like New York’s Museum of Modern Art (as Edvard Munch’s The Scream did), but on the opposite end of the US, at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. The painting, which remained on view there through early April, was loaned by its new owner Elaine Wynn, ex-wife of casino mogul and top collector Steve Wynn. Mrs. Wynn, a resident of Nevada, was reportedly entitled to save more than $10 million in taxes by first parking the painting at the Portland Art Museum before bringing it to her home state.