Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

Paint in the bloodstream: The Death of Francis Bacon, by Max Porter, reviewed

In just 74 pages, Porter powerfully captures the artist at work — his energy, bodily contortions and the cut and thrust of his brush

Francis Bacon at the Tate Gallery in 1985. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 09 January 2021

Francis Bacon once told the art critic Richard Cork: ‘I certainly hope I’ll go on till I drop dead.’ Max Porter’s The Death of Francis Bacon is a book about painting to the end. It is about art, rags and the restless artist’s eye. Porter, the author of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers and Lanny, has called it ‘my attempt to write as painting, not about it’.

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