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Head I

Head I

Artist: Francis Bacon (British, Dublin 1909–1992 Madrid)
Date: 1947–48
Medium: Oil and tempera on board
Dimensions: 39 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. (100.3 x 74.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Bequest of Richard S. Zeisler, 2007
Accession Number: 2007.247.1
Rights and Reproduction: © 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Not on view
Description Object Information Related Objects Online Resources Video Audio
Head I is the earliest of Bacon’s six portrait-format works included in his first exhibition at Erica Brausen’s Hanover Gallery, London, in 1949. Bacon here reduces the human form to a snarling mouth with fangs that leaves little doubt about its animal origins. The heavy impasto creates a texture that has been compared to rhinoceros skin—or, as critic Robert Melville wrote at the time, the “color of wet, black snakes lightly powdered with dust.”
  • Provenance

    [Redfern Gallery, London, 1948]; [Hanover Gallery, London, in 1949; to Redfern Gallery]; [Redfern Gallery, London, by 1953–58; sold in 1958 to Feigen]; [Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago, 1958–61; sold on May 8, 1961 to Zeisler]; Richard S. Zeisler, New York (1961–d. 2007; his bequest to MMA)

  • Exhibition History

    London. Hanover Gallery. "Francis Bacon, Paintings. Robin Ironside, Coloured Drawings," November 8–December 10, 1949.

    Edinburgh. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. "Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads," June 4–September 4, 2005, no. 2.

    Hamburger Kunsthalle. "Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads," October 13, 2005–January 15, 2006, no. 2.

    London. Tate Britain. "Francis Bacon," September 11, 2008–January 4, 2009, unnumbered cat. (p. 114).

    Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado. "Francis Bacon," February 3–April 19, 2009, unnumbered cat.

    New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective," May 18–August 16, 2009, unnumbered cat.

    London. Tate Britain. "Picasso and Modern British Art," February 15–July 15, 2012.

    Sydney. Art Gallery of New South Wales. "Francis Bacon: Five Decades," November 17, 2012–February 24, 2013.

  • References

    Michel Leiris. Francis Bacon: Full Face and in Profile. New York, 1983, no. 5.

    Dawn Ades and Andrew Forge. Francis Bacon. Exh. cat., Tate Gallery. New York, 1985, p. 14, ill. and colorpl. 6.

    Gary Tinterow in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2007–2008." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 66 (Fall 2008), p. 49, ill. (color).

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