Francis Bacon, 20th century British painter.
Known for his captivating yet disturbing images confronting themes such as death, crucifixion, and sexuality, Francis Bacon’s paintings are instantly recognisable thanks to his distinctive style and subject matter. Often created in triptych or diptych format, Bacon’s paintings are generally characterised by distorted, grotesque figures and bold, powerful brushstrokes that encapsulate movement and restless energy.
Therefore, it’s hardly surprising his work is among the most expensive and in demand on the art market today. However, it isn’t only Bacon’s original oil paintings that enjoy success at auction. Since 2000, over 90% of lots sold have been prints of his work, which mostly fetch prices between £1,000 and £50,000. Below are seven of the most sought-after Francis Bacon print titles.
Miroir de la Tauromachie
Sold by Sotheby’s in March 2015 for £85,000, these four lithographs are focused on bullfighting, a subject Francis Bacon returned to repeatedly throughout his career. Indeed, his last finished painting depicts a spectral bull shifting between darkness and light, a clear indication the artist knew he was reaching the end of his life.
Eroticism, self-examination, and violence intertwine and coalesce in the four images that make up Miroir de la Tauromachie, repeatedly forcing the viewer to question the distinction between man and beast, and life and death. The title of the series comes from the 1938 book by Francis Bacon’s close friend, Michel Leiris, the French surrealist writer. The first time the bullfighting paintings were ever exhibited together was at the ‘Francis Bacon: Man and Beast’ exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2022, which focused on the artist’s lifelong interest in animals and the primal instincts that lurk within everyone.
Miroir de la Tauromachie Sold by Christies in 2015
Deuxième Version du Triptyque
This 1988 triptych is a reworking of the earlier painting, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion, that established Bacon’s reputation in 1945. The print was sold by Polswiss Art in June 2024 for £79,691. Whilst very similar in some respects, the reworking is more than twice the size of the original, and the shocking orange of the earlier painting has been replaced by a dark, blood-red background. Critics are divided on which of the paintings is better, but most agree that although the later version is more refined, it lacks something of the raw, shocking intensity seen in the original.
Deuxième Version du Triptyque Sold by Polswiss Art in 2024
Triptyque Août
The prints of this triptych more than doubled their estimated value of £15,000 to £20,000 when they were sold by Phillips for £48,000 in January 2018. Triptyque Août is generally considered to be part of the so-called Black Triptychs, a series of works that Bacon painted after the suicide of his former lover, George Dyer. Dyer died from an overdose in 1971, an end that could have long been foretold, given the petty criminal’s increasing dependence on drugs and alcohol. Although the relationship was frequently tempestuous and damaging, Francis Bacon used Dyer as a model for many of his best-known works, and he continued to be deeply affected by his former lover’s suicide until his own death in 1992.
Triptyque Août Sold by Phillips in 2018
Triptych
The series of grotesque, semi-naked nudes on a shocking orange background was one of the last paintings Bacon created in the triptych format. It was sold by Whyte’s for £39,931 in October 2020. Characteristically, the fleshiness of the human body contrasts with the flat background and the simple geometric shapes that make up the painting, and the figures’ faces have been deliberately obscured or erased.
Triptych Sold by Christies in 2020
Three Studies of the Male Back
Once again, George Dyer was the inspiration for yet another celebrated Francis Bacon triptych, the print of which sold for £38,000 in 2014 by Christie’s, far-exceeding the estimate of £12,000 to £18,000.
In the triptych, Dyer is repeatedly shown as a vain and self-absorbed figure engrossed in his own reflection. In two out of the three images, his face is reflected and distorted by the mirror he sits in front of, but in the middle painting, the mirror reflects only darkness, which is perhaps a nod to Dyer’s self-destructive tendencies. Elements of the triptych also echo the painting After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself by Edgar Degas, an artist Francis Bacon admired greatly.
Three Studies of the Male Back Sold by Christies in 2014
Étude Pour un Portrait du Pape Innocent X d’après Velasquez
This print was sold by Koller for £36,167 in June 2022. Catholicism was a frequent target in Bacon’s work, both due to his troubled upbringing in Ireland, and the fact he was a homosexual man at a time when it was illegal. This particular print is directly influenced by Diego Velázequez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, a painting that Bacon both loved and repeatedly distorted and played with in his own work. The figure of the pope was an endless source of inspiration to Bacon, and the loose series of disturbing ‘screaming popes’ contains some of his most well-known works.
Étude Pour un Portrait du Pape Innocent X d’après Velasquez Sold by Koller in 2022
Three Studies for a Self-Portrait
These three prints showing Francis Bacon’s own contorted face were sold by Sotheby’s in April 2022 for £30,686. Although he reportedly hated his own appearance, Bacon repeatedly painted self-portraits, especially during the period of intense guilt and grief that followed George Dyer’s suicide. Bacon later claimed he painted self-portraits “because people have been dying around me like flies and I’ve nobody else left to paint but myself.”
Indeed, there is a sense of acute loneliness in Three Studies for a Self-Portrait, with the subject’s features taking up so much space that the viewer cannot focus on anything else. The way the face turns slowly through each of the triptych’s images echoes a mugshot, epitomising the endless and unflinching self-examination Bacon subjected himself to throughout his life.
Three Studies for a Self-Portrait Sold by Sotheby’s in 2022
