Francis Bacon: The First Pope

 

Francis Bacon - 'Landscape with Pope/Dictator', c. 1946

 

 

 

"I don't know how the copy of the Velasquez will turn out. I have practically finished one I think.... it is thrilling to paint from a picture which really excites you." - Francis Bacon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further to my last post on Francis Bacon's current retrospective across town at the Royal Academy, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to see the first ever painting in Bacon's Pope series at Gagosian Davies Street. Gagosian have form with elements of Bacon as the subject matter of their exhibitions (here, and here). This painting though, is the sole exhibit in a dramatically blackened gallery, like an altarpiece in a chapel. This is the first time this painting has been publicly exhibited since going into a private collection in 1967. The painting was only rediscovered as late as 2016 when a catalogue raisonné of Bacon's work was being compiled. The painting was previously untitled but has been titled 'Landscape with Pope/Dictator' (c. 1946), and is thought to have been created in Monte Carlo when Bacon resided there from 1946 to 1950. The Pope series are based on Velázquez's full-length Portrait of Innocent X at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome (here), which Bacon never visited but was familiar with from black and white reproductions in books. Other paintings from his papal series would have been informed by the half-length version at Apsley House, London, from the Duke of Wellington's collection, or photographs of living Pope Pius XII, who controversially failed to publicly condemn Nazism and the Holocaust. Bacon's personal collections contained pictures of dictators and rallies and he has included these elements in this painting, as well as neoclassical architectural elements such as the columns designed by Nazi architects such as Albert Speer. One surprising element of the painting given its dark tone is the inclusion of flowers at the bottom of the canvas. On the occasion of my visit I was lucky to have the gallery all to myself, the better to savour this important rediscovery from Bacon's oeuvre.

 

 

 

Francis Bacon: The First Pope

until 23rd April

Gagosian Davies Street

17–19 Davies Street
London 

W1K 3DE