Craig Raine

‘There are an awful lot of my paintings I don’t like,’ admitted Francis Bacon

While waspishly dismissive of many of the 20th century’s greatest artists, Bacon was also critical of his own work, in conversation with David Sylvester

Francis Bacon in his studio in London, 1966, photographed by Mario Dondero. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 11 May 2024
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  • Francis Bacon: A Self-Portrait in Words

    edited by Michael Peppiatt

    Thames & Hudson, pp. 500, £40

In 1959, Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ was hanging above the bed where Francis Bacon nursed a fractured skull after falling downstairs drunk at his framer Alfred Hecht’s house on the King’s Road. It was there to be re-framed – a circumstantial detail Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan report neutrally, en passant, in their 2021 biography Francis Bacon: Revelations.

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