Beschreibung:

◆ 14 Francis Bacon Follow Interior of a room oil on canvas 111.7 x 86.5 cm (43 7/8 x 34 in.) Painted circa 1935.
Provenance Ms. Diana V. Watson, London (acquired directly from her cousin, the artist) Sotheby's, London, 30 November 1989, lot 600 Mr. James Kirkman, London (acquired at the above sale) Sotheby's, London, 2 July 1998, lot 117 Crane Kalman Gallery, London Private Collection (acquired from the above in June 2000) Private Collection, New York Exhibited Lugano, Museo d'Arte Moderna, Francis Bacon 7 March – 30 May 1993, no. 5, pp. 22-23, 137 (illustrated, p. 23) Paris, Centre National d'Art et de Culture, Centre Georges Pompidou; Munich, Haus der Kunst, Francis Bacon 27 June 1996 – 26 January 1997, no. 2, p. 82 (illustrated) Paris, Musée Picasso, Bacon Picasso: La Vie des Images, 2 March – 30 May 2005, no. 108, pp. 119, 151, 235 (illustrated, p. 119) London, Tate Britain; Edinburgh, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Picasso and Modern British Art, 15 February – 4 November 2012, no. 92, pp. 154-155, 231 (illustrated, p. 155) Literature Ronald Alley and John Rothenstein, eds., Francis Bacon , London, 1964, no. 11, p. 31 (illustrated) Hugh Marlais Davies, Francis Bacon The Early and Middle Years , London, 1978, pl. 20, pp. 24 - 25 (illustrated) Andrew Sinclair, Francis Bacon His Life and Violent Times , London, 1993, pp. 76, 346 Richard Kendall, 'Francis Bacon & Lucian Freud ' Apollo Magazine , November 1996, p. 44 (illustrated) Christophe Domino, Bacon, Monstre de Peinture , Paris, 1996, pp. 24 - 25 (illustrated) Alan Riding, ‘A British Outsider Embraced With a French Blockbuster’, The New York Times , 10 July 1996 Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon Anatomy of an Enigma , New York, 1996, p. 69 Christophe Domino, Francis Bacon Taking Reality by Surprise , London, 1997, fig. 25a, p. 25 (illustrated, incorrectly dated circa 1933) David Cohen ‘The Dualist: Francis Bacon’, Art in America , January 1997, p. 66 (illustrated) Christophe Domino, Discoveries: Francis Bacon , New York, 1997 Ensemble moderne: the still life in modern art , exh. cat., Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, 1998, pp. 24, 186 (illustrated, p. 24) Francis Bacon A Retrospective , exh. cat., The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1999, p. 21 (illustrated) David Sylvester Looking Back at Francis Bacon , London, 2000, pl. 5, pp. 16, 268 (illustrated, p. 16) Anne Baldassari, Bacon Picasso: The Life of Images , Paris, 2005, no. 108, pp. 119, 151, 235 (illustrated, p. 119) Rudy Chiappini, ed., Bacon , Milan, 2008, no. 2, p. 28 (illustrated) Martin Harrison, ed., Francis Bacon Catalogue Raisonné, vol II: 1929 - 57 , London, 2016, no. 34-02, pp. 134 -135 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Densely layered and multifaceted in connotative associations, Interior of a room encapsulates a number of the key themes that Francis Bacon explored in great depth throughout his prolific oeuvre, a body of work which altered the course of twentieth century painting and continues to stimulate progressive dialogue surrounding human emotion, societal interaction and psychological anxieties today. Interior of a room is an early example of Bacon's painterly enquiry into the interaction of form and colour, both of which coalesce in the present work to create an enclosed microcosm of tessellated constructed planes, wild beasts and swathes of intense tonal convergence. Painted circa 1935, the present work envelops the viewer into Bacon's atmospheric interior, suspending us in a moment of dislocation and intimate reflection. Interior of a room was exhibited at the artist’s self-titled retrospective held at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, in 1996, conceived by David Sylvester and selected as one of three works chosen to represent the artist’s pre-1944 period. Displayed alongside two pivotal canvasses, namely Figures in a Garden , circa 1936, now housed in Tate collection, London, and Crucifixion from 1933, the canvas which attracted widespread critical attention on its unveiling, the present masterwork interweaves the great wealth of sources from which Bacon drew inspiration, creati