Francis Bacon

Starred review from April 19, 2021
In this monumental work, Pulitzer Prize–winning art critics Stevens and Swan (De Kooning: An American Master) make a convincing case that “the twentieth century does not know itself without” the work of English painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992). Starting with Bacon’s birth and fraught childhood in Ireland, the authors trace his exploration of cubism, surrealism, and expressionism on his way to emerging as a major figure on the international art scene near the end of WWII, a lofty position that has only increased since his death. Throughout, Swan and Stevens provide penetrating insights into his complex psyche, his sexuality (Bacon was gay), his friendships, and how such a “handsome, witty, and amiable” person could have created paintings that many see as grotesque and even nightmarish. While his contemporaries, such as Henry Moore, created art that “sensitively expressed ‘the terrible toll of war,’ ” Bacon shocked audiences by “mercilessly attacking every comforting platitude of the twentieth century” and exposing the hypocrisy of postwar London society. Often mocking religious iconography with distorted figures and tormented ghouls, he captured the “living tension between power and powerlessness.” Full of illuminating details and written in exquisite prose, this a fascinating look at the dichotomy between an artist’s inner life and their work.