Draws on a broad range of source images and documents to discuss the role of photography, film stills, and mass-media imagery in some of Francis Bacon's most important paintings and stylistic development, in an account that places Bacon's work in a context of the mechanical reproduction process and the influences of his time.

A lavishly illustrated look at the sources behind the paintings of Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon famously found inspiration in photographs, film stills, and images from the media. In this new, updated edition of In Camera, Martin Harrison reveals how these sources informed some of Bacon’s most important paintings and triggered decisive turning points in the artist’s stylistic development. Key influences—including the masters Diego Velázquez, Nicolas Poussin, and Auguste Rodin; the photographer Eadweard Muybridge; and the film director Sergei Eisenstein—are given close consideration. Bacon’s work is examined in relation to the precedents set by other artists who made use of mechanical reproductions, including Pablo Picasso and Walter Sickert, and in the context of his contemporaries Lucian Freud, Mark Rothko, Graham Sutherland, and Patrick Heron. With over 270 color illustrations, including valuable source images and documents, In Camera is a bravura accomplishment of original research, addressing important questions about Bacon’s painting practice and shedding fresh light on his life and work.

The British painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992) is famed for his idiosyncratic mode of depicting the human figure. Thirty years after his death, his working methods remain underexplored. New research on the Francis Bacon Studio Archive at Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, sheds light on the genesis of his works, namely the photographic source material he collected in his studios, on which he consistently based his paintings. The book brings together the artist’s pictorial springboards for the first time, delineating and interpreting recurring patterns and methods in his preparatory work and adoption of photographic material. In addition, it correctly locates ‘chance’ as a driving force in Bacon’s working method and qualifies the significance of photography for the painter.

The third book in the Francis Bacon Studies series, this volume reveals fundamental insights into the artist’s character and psychology that will change existing perceptions. Very little is known about Francis Bacon’s early career, but this third installment in the Bacon estate’s groundbreaking series provides exciting new insight into and analysis of the elusive artist. Archived material recently added to the Estate of Francis Bacon’s collection—including the diaries of Bacon’s first two patrons and an extensive number of records kept by Bacon’s doctor, Paul Brass—has allowed Francesca Pipe, Sophie Pretorius, and Martin Harrison to delve deeper into the artist’s formative years than ever before and revolutionize existing perceptions of Bacon’s character and psychology. Essays by Sarah Whitfield, Joyce Townsend, and Christopher Bucklow draw on biographical details of the artist’s life and technical analysis of his work. Utilizing this more traditional, art-historical approach, these scholars examine the complex relationships between Bacon and his peers and offer new insights into the artist’s methods and the system of metaphors within his paintings. This fascinating collection of scholarship will interest anyone looking to learn more about Francis Bacon, contemporary art, or the artistic imagination.

The British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) is famed for his idiosyncratic mode of depicting the human figure. Thirty years after his death, his working methods remain underexplored. New research on the Francis Bacon Studio Archive at Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, sheds light on the genesis of his works, namely the photographic source material he collected in his studios, on which he consistently based his paintings. The book brings together the artist's pictorial springboards for the first time, delineating and interpreting recurring patterns and methods in his preparatory work and adoption of photographic material. In addition, it correctly locates 'chance' as a driving force in Bacon's working method and qualifies the significance of photography for the painter.