FRANCIS BACON

TRIPTYCH - AUGUST 1972

25.75 X 19.125 inches

EDITION OF 180

LITHOGRAPH

This work is generally considered one in a series of Black Triptychs which followed the suicide of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Dyer appears on the left and Bacon is on the right.The central group is derived from a photograph of wrestlers by Edward Muybridge, but also suggests a more sexual encounter. The seated figures and their coupling are set against black voids and the central flurry has been seen as ‘a life-and-death struggle’. The artist’s biographer wrote: ‘What death has not already consumed seeps incontinently out of the figures as their shadows.’ Lithograph printed in colours in three parts, 1979, after the paintings, 1972. Hand signed and numbered in pencil. Printed and published by Galerie Lelong, Paris, on Arches wove paper, with full margins. Each image: 655 by 485mm; 25.75 by 19.125 in. each sheet: 895 by 625mm; 35.25 by 24.625 in. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of Authenticity included.