On view in the Francis Bacon display cases.
Reproductions of Francis Bacon’s own paintings lined the walls of his kitchen and studio at 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington, London. These reproductions of his work including leaves torn from books, magazines and catalogues, as well as photographs taken by Prudence Cuming, were found among the thousands of items in his studio.
As well as offering the opportunity for continuously looking at previous compositions and subjects as sources of inspiration, Bacon also on occasion over-painted or manipulated these reproductions of his own finished paintings as another way of exploring and developing new compositional and pictorial ideas in his work. As was common with sources and images of particular interest to the artist, on a number of occasions multiples of the same painting were found in his studio.
As the recently published catalogue raisonné of Francis Bacon has revealed, Bacon made over 580 paintings during the course of his artistic career. On view here are a number of images of Bacon’s work found in his studio. The subjects include Bacon’s friend and sole heir John Edwards, his friend Isabel Rawsthorne, the wildlife photographer and writer Peter Beard and Bacon’s lover George Dyer.
