Celebrating Francis Bacon
Selected by the Bookshop
We bitterly regret having opened the shop too late to have welcomed Francis Bacon as a customer, although one of our older colleagues remembers selling him a book once on Charing Cross Road.
To make up for our lack of forethought, and to mark the brilliant retrospective of his work that runs at the RA this spring, here are a selection of books around and about him.
From the publisher:
Francis Bacon’s conversation was by turns witty, provocative, and profound. In gathering together Bacon’s most memorable aphorisms, Michael Peppiatt—a friend of the artist and co-curator of the Royal Academy of Arts’…
From the publisher:
Francis Bacon is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th century. A major exhibition of his paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2020 explores the role of animals in his work - not least the human animal.…
From the publisher:
This funny and personal memoir is the account of an audacious quest by James Birch, the young British curator, to mount the ground-breaking Francis Bacon exhibition at the newly furbished Central House of Artists, Moscow in 1988.Somewhat…
From the publisher:
Francis Bacon was one of most elusive and enigmatic creative geniuses of the twentieth century. However much his avowed aim was to simplify both himself and his art, he remained a deeply complex person. Bacon was keenly aware of this…
From the publisher:
The Times Art Book of the Year 2021‘Must surely be the definitive life of Francis Bacon … A biography that no Bacon fan – or indeed foe – can afford to overlook … Mesmerising’ THE TIMES‘A…
From the publisher:
Sunday Times Art Book of the Year 2018'If you are interested in modern British art, the book is unputdownable. If you are not, read it.' - Grey Gowrie, Financial Times 'All the good stories, and more, are here ... this is a genuinely…
From the publisher:
A bold and brilliant short work by the author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny.…
From the publisher:
'Entertaining, shocking, uproarious, hilarious . . . like eavesdropping on a wake, as the mourners get gradually more drunk and tell ever more outrageous stories' Sunday TimesThis is the definitive history of London's most notorious…
From the publisher:
In this landmark text by one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Gilles Deleuze takes the paintings of Francis Bacon as his object of his study. The book presents a deep engagement with Bacon's work and the nature…
From the publisher:
The extraordinarily revealing interviews with Francis Bacon conducted over a period of 25 years by the distinguished art critic David Sylvester amount to a unique statement by Bacon on his art and on art in general. In the book, a classic…
From the publisher:
A lavishly illustrated look at the sources behind the paintings of Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon famously found inspiration in photographs, film-stills and mass-media imagery. In this new, updated edition of In Camera, Martin Harrison…
From the publisher:
A unique portrait of one of the creative geniuses of the 20th century, by the distinguished critic David Sylvester. Controversial in both life and art, Francis Bacon was one of the most important painters of the 20th century. His…