Francis Bacon: Books and Painting, Exhibition, Centre Pompidou, Paris: 11 September 2019-20 January 2020

Over 20 years after the last major exhibition dedicated to the artist in France, Francis Bacon: Books and Painting showcases works from 1971 to 1992 that explore the influence of literature in the painting of the British figurative painter. 

Aeschylus, Nietzsche, Bataille, Leiris, Conrad and Eliot are at the heart of the exhibition; these authors inspired Bacon’s work and motifs, and they granted him with a ‘spiritual family’ for the artist to identify with. Bacon himself acknowledged that literature stimulated his imagination, inspiring a ‘general atmosphere’, ‘images’ which emerged like the Furies in his paintings.

Curated by Didier Ottinger, the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou focuses on works produced by Bacon in the last two decades of his career though 60 paintings (including 12 triptychs, a series of portraits and self-portraits) that are on loan from important private and public collections, displayed across six rooms. Notable works featured in the exhibition include Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, which bears witness to the impact of Aeschylus’ tragedy on Bacon's work, and Triptych Inspired by T.S. Eliot's Poem "Sweeney Agonistes", 1967.

Centre Pompidou

Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris