On this day 28 April death of Mary Read – Ken Curtis – Francis Bacon – Ann Petry – John Singleton

Francis Bacon
photographed in the early 1950s

On this day in 1992, artist Francis Bacon died of a heart attack in Madrid at the age of 82. Born on 28 October 1909 in Dublin. Bacon was a figurative painter known for his bold, grotesque, emotionally charged, raw imagery. Perhaps best known for his depictions of popes, crucifixions and portraits of close friends. His abstracted figures are typically isolated in geometrical cage like spaces, set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon said that he saw images “in series”, and his work typically focuses on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats. His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on a single motif; beginning with the 1930s Picasso-informed Furies, moving on to the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the 1950s screaming popes, and the mid-to-late 1950s animals and lone figures, the 1960s portraits of friends, the nihilistic 1970s self-portraits, and the cooler more technical 1980s late works.

Bacon took up painting late in life, having drifted in the late 1920s and 1930s as an interior decorator, bon vivant and gambler. He said that his artistic career was delayed because he spent too long looking for subject matter that could sustain his interest. His breakthrough came with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition. From the mid-1960s he mainly produced portraits of friends and drinking companions, either as single or triptych panels. Following the suicide of his lover George Dyer in the 1971 his art became more sombre, inward-looking and preoccupied with the passage of time and death. The climax of this later period is marked by masterpieces, including his 1982’s “Study for Self-Portrait” and Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86.

Despite his bleak existentialist outlook Bacon in person was highly engaging and charismatic, articulate, well-read and openly gay. He was a prolific artist, but nonetheless spent many of the evenings of his middle age eating, drinking and gambling in London’s Soho with like-minded friends.

After Dyer’s suicide he largely distanced himself from this circle, and while his social life was still active and his passion for gambling and drinking continued, he settled into a platonic and somewhat fatherly relationship with his eventual heir, John Edwards. Robert Hughes described Bacon as “the most implacable, lyric artist in late 20th-century England, perhaps in all the world” and along with Willem de Kooning as “the most important painter of the disquieting human figure in the 50’s of the 20th century.” Francis Bacon was the subject of two Tate retrospectives and a major showing in 1971 at the Grand Palais. Since his death his reputation and market value have grown steadily, and his work is among the most acclaimed, expensive and sought-after.

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944. Oil and pastel on Sundeala board. Tate Britain, London

 

Head VI, 1949

 

Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, 1963

 

Triptych, May–June 1973, oil on canvas, 198 × 147 cm. Collection of Esther Grether

 

Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86, Marlborough Fine Art, London

 

While holidaying in Madrid in 1992, Bacon was admitted to the Handmaids of Maria, a private clinic, where he was cared for by Sister Mercedes. His chronic asthma, which had plagued him all his life, had developed into a respiratory condition and he could not talk or breathe very well.

The Final Footprint

He had bequeathed his estate to John Edwards and Brian Clark, executors. In 1998 the director of the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin secured the donation of the contents of Bacon’s chaotic studio at 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington. The contents of his studio were moved and reconstructed in the gallery. 

Bacon was cremated.

#RIP #OTD in 1997 writer of novels (The Street, The Narrows), short stories, children’s books, Ann Petry died in Old Saybrook, Connecticut at the age of 88. Cypress Cemetery, Old Saybrook

On this day in 2019 film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor John Singleton died from a stroke at the age of 51. Born John Daniel Singleton on January 6, 1968 in Los Angeles. Perhaps best known for directing Boyz n the Hood (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming at age 24, the first African American and youngest person to have ever been nominated for that award. Many of his films, such as Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), and Baby Boy (2001), had themes which resonated with contemporary urban population. He also directed the drama Rosewood (1997) and the action films Shaft (2000), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), and Four Brothers (2005). He co-created the television crime drama Snowfall. He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for “The Race Card”, the fifth episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

The Final Footprint

A private funeral was held on May 6, 2019 in Los Angeles, and Singleton was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills. Other notable final footprints at Hollywood Hills include; Gene Autry, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, David Carradine, Scatman Crothers, Bette Davis, Sandra Dee, Ronnie James Dio, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carrie Fisher, Bobby Fuller, Andy Gibb, Michael Hutchence, Jill Ireland, Al Jarreau, Buster Keaton, Lemmy Kilmister, Rodney King, Jack LaLanne, Nicolette Larson, Liberace, Strother Martin, Jayne Meadows, Brittany Murphy, Ricky Nelson, Bill Paxton, Brock Peters, Freddie Prinze, Lou Rawls, Debbie Reynolds, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef, and Paul Walker.