The third book in the Francis Bacon Studies series, published under the aegis of The Estate of Francis Bacon

The third instalment in the Bacon Estate’s groundbreaking series discloses the most exciting new research and information to emerge in many years on this elusive artist. Three of the essays, by Francesca Pipe, Sophie Pretorius and Martin Harrison, are based on archives recently added to the collection of the Estate of Francis Bacon. Very little is known about Bacon’s early career, and the diaries of his two first patrons provide a far deeper understanding of his formative years than has been accessible hitherto. Especially revelatory are the extensive records kept over a long period by Bacon’s doctor, Paul Brass: what they reveal will revolutionise thinking on Bacon.

Sarah Whitfield sheds new light on both Bonnard and Bacon; she has identified concerns the two artists shared that will surprise as well as enlighten. Joyce Townsend draws on her scientific and technical investigations into Tate’s most important Bacon paintings to advance significant new information about Bacon’s methods. Christopher Bucklow is an expert on Japanese art, which forms an important, if unexpected, aspect of his rethinking of the metaphor system in Bacon’s paintings.

About the Authors:

Martin Harrison is one of the foremost scholars of Francis Bacon, and the editor of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné.

Christopher Bucklow is an artist, photographer and art historian.

Francesca Pipe has transcribed and annotated all the extant diaries of Eric Allden dating from the period 1920 to 1946.

Sophie Pretorius is Archivist of the Estate’s Bacon collection, and has transcribed all Bacon’s surviving medical records.

Joyce H. Townsend is senior conservation scientist at Tate. She is the author of numerous books, including Turner’s Painting Techniques and, with Tony Smibert, The Tate Watercolour Manual: Lessons from the Great Masters.

Sarah Whitfield is an art historian, writer and curator. She is co-author of the René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, and serves on the authentication committee for the Estate of Francis Bacon.

Rarely seen and important paintings by this much-loved French postimpressionist, emphasizing his radical use of color and unconventional compositions. 

A new monograph brings together 30 important paintings by Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) on loan from museums and private collections, including still lifes, nudes, interior scenes, and landscapes, many never seen together before and published here for the first time. The book reveals how Bonnard’s modern compositions transformed paintings in the first half of the twentieth century, while celebrating his unpar-alleled ability to capture fleeting moments, memories, and emotions on canvas. Rather than focus on a particular time period or subject, Bonnard: The Experience of Seeing aims to present Bonnard’s modernity and concentrate on his influence on contemporary painters working today. The book draws attention to how Bonnard translated the experience of perception—with his shifting spaces, camouflaged and dissolving figures going in and out of focus, and forms hidden at the periphery — and how we as viewers experience his paintings, with his works slowly revealing themselves to us over time. 

About the Author:

Barry Schwabsky is art critic for The Nation and coeditor of international reviews for Artforum. Sarah Whitfield is an art historian, writer, and curator. She is coauthor of the René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné.