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A portrait of the artist by Francis Bacon

1970–71
Not on view
In 1969, at the end of a characteristically wine-soaked lunch at Robert Carrier’s London restaurant with the artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992), Hamilton asked Bacon to photograph him against the drapes of the dining room. The first exposure was blurry from Bacon’s tipsy handling of the Polaroid, but Hamilton found the image to have an affinity with Bacon’s distinctive style of painting. Working with oil on collotype copies of that portrait, Hamilton produced seven studies from which Bacon was to select his favorite. He chose the seventh study in which Hamilton had covered the blurred curtains with a particularly Bacon-esque violet.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: A portrait of the artist by Francis Bacon
  • Artist: Richard Hamilton (British, London 1922–2011 Oxfordshire)
  • Date: 1970–71
  • Medium: Collotype and screenprint
  • Edition: 7/140 + 14 artist's proofs
  • Dimensions: 32 3/8 × 27 3/8 in. (82.2 × 69.5 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 2000
  • Object Number: 2000.396
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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Swingeing London 67, Richard Hamilton British, Etching, aquatint, photoetching, and collage, embossed and die stamped with metallic foil
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