Francis Bacon: The Human Body

Hayward Gallery, 5 February – 5 April 1998

Poster for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Francis Bacon: The Human Body was developed and curated by the critic and writer David Sylvester. This relatively small and selective exhibition, which took place in the Hayward’s lower galleries, featured five triptychs and eighteen single canvases, dating from 1943 to 1986.

Installation View: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

The exhibition was not a retrospective (Sylvester had curated Bacon’s retrospectives at the Centre de Pompidou, Paris, in 1996). Instead, it focussed on Bacon’s depiction of the human body, the artist’s central subject for over 50 years.

Installation view: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

At the time of Francis Bacon: The Human Body, there hadn’t been a major showing of the artist’s work in London for more than a decade.

Installation View: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

The 23 paintings in the exhibition were a mixture of self-portraits, nudes studies and portraits of friends, among them Portrait of Lucian Freud (1951).

Installation view: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Each of the 23 works in the exhibition was deliberately given as much space as possible, a decision that was singled out for praise by the show’s reviewers, including John McEwen in The Sunday Telegraph, for whom the ‘admirable sparseness’ of the hang emphasised the work’s ‘solemnity.’

Installation View: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

In the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition, David Sylvester described Bacon as ‘the one great exponent in our time of the Figurative Sublime’.

Installation View: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Installation View: Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998. Photo: Marcus Leith. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Francis Bacon: The Human Body took place alongside an exhibition of work by the photographer Henri Cartier Bresson. Together, they received 134,854 visitors.

Exhibition Guide for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 Exhibition Guide for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 (1998) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

The exhibition guide was written by critic and curator David Sylvester.

Press Release for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998Hayward Gallery

Press release for Francis Bacon: The Human Body.

Hand-written List of Possible Titles for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 (1997-07-07) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Handwritten list of possible exhibition titles provided by curator David Sylvester.

Hand-written List of Possible Titles for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 (1997) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

More title options

Press Cutting for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 (1998-02-14)Hayward Gallery

For John McEwen and Martin Gayford writing in The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator, the exhibition provided new ways of approaching the artist. ‘Bacon is popularly thought of as a painter of powerful but ugly pictures of modern man in torment ... this presentation reveals how magisterial his best work can be' argued McEwen, while Gayford claimed that ‘few artists have been so systematically and persistently misunderstood’.

Press Cutting for Francis Bacon: The Human Body, Hayward Gallery, 1998 (1998-02-08)Hayward Gallery

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