Francis Bacon
"Francis Bacon is one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. Born in Dublin in 1909, he spent most of his life in London. From the 1940s until his death in 1992 he worked consistently as a figurative painter, ignoring other passing trends in art. Throughout his career, the human form was the dominant subject in his work. His paintings of friends, lovers and other artists go far beyond simple likenesses: rather they are portraits of complex physical and psychological states." "In the early 1960s Bacon began a series of small portrait heads of those closest to him. Often grouped in threes - a format that gave the artist an opportunity to show different aspects of the sitter's character - Bacon's small heads reveal a rich vein of intimacy in his art. These private, almost devotional, portraits are brought together for the first time in this book and the exhibition which it accompanies."--Jacket.