Product Description
In 1949 Francis Bacon found his main subject, the human body, and from then on it remained his principal theme. But he did not paint from life. Instead, he took from images from the mass media - newspapers, magazines, books, photos - and drew on them for his paintings.This book presents over 200 of these documents, about which Bacon was secretive but which, it emerges, were integral to his creative process, along with some of the works that the material inspired. over 100 color illustrations ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Incunabula for Collectors only
First of all, I don't know what a previous reviewer means when he writes this book is well written as it only contains a one pageintroduction by Barbara Dawson and an essay by Martin Harrison entitled "Bacon's Incunabula" barely four pages long.By Incunabula are meant the circa 180 full page illustrations of various objects that were found in Bacon's Reece Mews Studio formerly located in London and consequently moved to the Hugh LaneGallery in Dublin. There is no Index, but the objects are divided into the following categories:
1. Art - Photography, mostly photos ripped out of Muybridge's book,"The Human figure in Motion", books on sculpture and also erotic magazines.
2. Conflict - Mass Media, mostly images torn from newspapers and magazines, many of which depict violence or the aftermath of violence, such as dead bodies, effects from injuries etc.
3. Action - Painting, more images from Muybridge, but also photos from art and sports magazines.
4. Science - Nature, images torn from K.C. Clark's books on "Positioning in Radiography", Schrenk-Notzing's " Phenomena of Materialization" , more Muybridge, and also images from cookbooks etc.
5. Art - Photography - Art, images torn from Art Book and Catalogs, including Bacon's own work
At the end of the book there is a brief section of "Commentaries" with short descriptions of a sentence or two on each image.

Even though it is claimed that many of the images have not been published before, I have seen more than three fourths in other books on Francis Bacon. I really do not know what purpose this book can serve, other than the fact that the objects are shown in a larger size than before with one image per page. As a collector of book on Francis Bacon I continue to be amazed how many recentbooks concentrate onhis Studio instead of his art. The objects in the studio are supposed to be the "key" to Bacon's paintings, but I would argue they are in most cases only an inspiration. Conspicuously absent from this book are photographs of of Bacon himself and the people he painted. Granted there are a few of Peter Lacy and George Dyer, but not of the many other people he painted. The authors fail to make a case of how the majority of the images in this book are related to Bacon's paintings, which one would think is the whole point of the exercise.

Still there are a few pluses here. The book is well bound, and printed on quality paper. The full page images are of interest and are well printed, plus best of all for collectors, this book is not likely to stay in print long and should accrue in value.

Review by Walter O. Koenig

O to be a fly on the wall of Reece Mews studio!
Francis Bacon continues to grow in stature as one of the most significant artists of the last century.There are countless books both in print and out of print as collector's items that survey his artistic output, dissections of his psychological makeup, his preoccupation with distortion and grotesquerie, books that focus only on his portraits, catalogues that accompanied his exhibitions while he was alive, and several fine retrospective studies that explore his early 'design' career up to and including his final large canvases or triptychs. There are also several excellent films, both from Hollywood and from interviews. So why does this artist's life and talent garner so much continued exploration?This excellent book FRANCIS BACON: INCUNABULA shines some light on this question.'Incunabula' is defined as the earliest stages or first traces of anything.

Martin Harrison and Rebecca Daniels have gathered much of the stimuli that fed Bacon's imagination - bits of torn photographs, newspaper clippings, pages torn from cookbooks, art books, and other paraphernalia.These images are then paired with the canvases that Bacon derived from the detritus that gathered around him in his infamously cluttered and filthy Reece Mews studio in London. Though Bacon repeated painted portraits of his friends and lovers he seldom 'painted from the model' in studio.Photographs and studies of animals and people in motion infused his perceptions of his 'models' and the results of seeing some of these gathered idea fragments in context makes Bacon's portraiture even more satisfying.

Even for those who are collecting multiple volumes about the fascinating Francis Bacon, this book is a welcome addition to the library. It is well written, well designed and fills a void about which we to date have known very little.Grady Harp, October 09

The Man That Paints Those Dreadful Pictures
Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992) was an Irish painter, specializing in violent or grotesque art, using Catholic imagery or his friends as subject matter. Margaret Thatcher once referred to him as the man "that paints those dreadful pictures." Bacon routinely denied using preparatory materials when working on his paintings, but with his death, much of the materials he left in his studio and apartment have been donated to various galleries, and been cataloged and organized. From those materials, Harrison and Daniels have put together many of the drawings and media images that Bacon used when designing his paintings, and collected them in Francis Bacon: Incunabula. This is less a standalone book and more a companion to Harrison's earlier book, In Camera, Francis Bacon: Photography, Film and the Practice of Painting, showing just what images prompted different works produced by Bacon. His use of images from ordinary sources to become such extraordinary paintings underlies his belief that anything can excite an artist, even something lying on the floor.

Incunabula was produced to coincide with retrospectives of Bacon's work happening at the Tate, the Prado, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. ... Read more

Product Description
Prior to the publication of this biography, the elusive Anthony Bacon was merely glimpsed in the shadow of his famous younger brother, Francis. A fascinating historical figure, Anthony Bacon was a contemporary of the brilliant band of gallants who clustered round the court of Elizabeth I, and he was closely connected with the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex. He also worked as an agent for Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's spymaster, living in France where he became acquainted with Henri IV and the famous essayist Michel de Montaigne. It was in France that du Maurier discovered a secret that, if disclosed during Bacon's lifetime, could have put an end to his political career ...Du Maurier did much to shed light on matters that had long puzzled historians, and, as well as a consummate exercise in research, this biography is also a strange and fascinating tale. ... Read more

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From tormented self-images to brutal portrayals of friends and fellow artists, the portraits of Francis Bacon account for one of the most remarkable aspects of the work of this great British painter. His stylistic distortions of classicism and his famous deformations have changed the traditional genre of portraiture more drastically than the work of any other artist of the twentieth century. Originally published on the occasion of a major retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits is the first book dedicated to this aspect of his work. Milan Kundera, the famed Czech novelist, provides a perceptive introduction explaining his personal response to Bacon's work, exploring the paradox that lies in the faithfulness of the distorted images, and likening Bacon's genius to that of Samuel Beckett, both working at the outer limits of their art. An important essay by art historian France Borel sets Bacon's works in the context of his life and influences and explains his approach to portraiture. With superb reproductions of more than 130 studies and portraits, including those of Lucian Freud, George Dyer, Mick Jagger, and Isabel Rawsthorne, Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits offers new insight into these radical and disturbing images. Many details are included, revealing for the first time the varied textures of Bacon's paint surface. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Face Off
Francis Bacon jolted the art world in a way that is only now, some nine years after his death, being fully appreciated.During the final years of his bizarre life he achieved fame and museum acceptance and the accompanying high figure prices for his canvases.And of course soon after his death there was the usual debate about whether he was a painter or a one note song. This beautifully presented volume seems to dispell the latter, as here is documentation of all the head-only portraits Bacon painted of his friends and of himself.His usual "brutal vision" seems less forced when the paintings are accompanied by photogrphs of the models:some of Bacon's friends were fairly distorted before his brush hit the canvas!This book allows the reader to examine a narrow part of Bacon's output and in doing so focuses keenly on his view of the world, his pallete and his technique.Very fine essays by Milan Kundera and France Borel enhance this sensitive tribute to one of the more important 20th Century figurative painters.

Art Meets Occultism, and not for the first time...
For those of you who have spent considerable time reading about the Templars, Illuminatus, Masons, et. al. then this book would be of no shock to you.Francis Bacon in the disquise of an artist, in the disquise of the painted. The art itself lends itself to the greater mystery, and as such is a must have for any enthusiast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"Possibly The Best Bacon Book"
this is a terrific book, and if you are lucky enough to find this original edition and not the 2008 reprint(not very good ,small, cruddy reproductions)you will find what is quite possibly the best monograph available on the artist. The essay by Msser. Leiris is classic french surrealist scrabble at it's best, the reproductions are mostly full page and are nice, plus there are several hundred, which is a good thing...don't miss this book, if you are any kind of Francis Bacon fan you wont.

A lot of pictures, horrible language
This book contains a lot of Francis Bacon's works, which is great. However, the language is terrible: Every sentence is unnaturally long, and it's a real pain to read. I recommend finding a different book if you're interesting in reading more about Bacon. ... Read more

Product Description
Francis Bacon isrightly celebrated as one of the founders of the scientific andtechnological revolution that transformed Western civilization. Hischief works argue that a society dedicated to science and technologywould "relieve the human estate," providing a longer, healthier, moreinformed, and more ennobling life for everyone. Now available fromWaveland Press, Bacon's remarkable An Advertisement Touching a HolyWar stands as a document of major historical importance and intensecurrent relevance because it offers an additional reason for themodern revolution. In it Bacon dares to suggest that a revolution inthinking and acting is necessary because European intellectual andspiritual life as well as European politics had been captured byreligious fanaticism that threatened to plunge Renaissance Europe intoanother dark age. Bacon chose the old literary device of dialogue topresent his argument for wholesale change indirectly. In theconversation of his characters he allows readers to see the reasonsfor kindling spiritual warfare against the spiritual rulers ofEuropean civilization. An Advertisement Touching a Holy War gives agreat philosopher's reasons for initiating the war between science andreligion that was actually fought in the coming centuries in Westerncivilization and of which we are the heirs. ... Read more

Product Description
1899. This volume presents part of the hidden writings which the biliteral cipher reveals in the following works: Of the Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon; King Henry's Seventh; Sylvarum and the New Atlantis; Shepherd's Calendar and Short Poems by Spenser; Faerie Queen; Sejanus and Masques by Jonson; Edward Second by Marlowe; Shakespeare's plays; and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume belongs to the first new critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to have been produced since the nineteenth century. The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and according to the best principles of modern textual scholarship. The seven works in the present volume belong to the final completed stages (Parts III-V) of Bacon's hugely ambitious six-part sequence of philosophical works, collectively entitled Instauratio magna (1620-6). All are presented in the original Latin with new facing-page translations. Three of the seven texts (substantial works in two cases, and all sharing a startlingly improbable textual history) are published and translated here for the first time: these are an early version of the Historia densi, the 'lost' Abecedarium, and the Historia de animato & inanimato. Another--the Prodromi sive anticipationes philosphiae secundae--has likewise never been translatedbefore. Together with their commentaries and the introduction they open the way to important new understandings of Bacon's mature philosophical thought. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume inaugurates a new critical edition of the writings of the great English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626)--the first such complete edition in more than a hundred years. It contains six of Bacon's Latin scientific works, each accompanied by entirely new facing-page translations which, together with the extensive introduction and commentaries, offer fresh insights into one of the great minds of the early seventeenth century. ... Read more

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Product Description
1894. Other volumes in this set include ISBN number(s): 076612813X. Volume 2 of 2. Comprising Books 3, 4, 5 of Cipher Story. This is a deciphering or translation of Bacon's Philosophical Works, the Plays and other works, originally written in Latin, to extract the connected Story through the means of the Cipher Keys. Bacon gave the decipherer liberty to exercise your own judgment and give it a smoothness when it lamely halts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Francis Bacon's secret story
You may have heard about the controversial claim that Bacon wrote the Shakespeare plays. You may have even heard about the secret codes he hid in the plays to tell his story.But have you ever read his story?Here you have the real thing, de-coded, in dramatic detail, in his own voice, and it is a fascinating ride. You hear about his being really the son of Queen Elizabeth, but forbidden to say so, of his courtship of a French princess, of his agony at having to help sentence his brother to death, etc. etc. The story in itself is convincing. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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"Francis Bacon:The Papal Portraits of 1953" explores the longest series of paintings made by the British artist Francis Bacon. For the first time in history, the exhibition and this accompanying book brought together all eight "Study for Portrait" paintings, as well as the famous "Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X" from 1953. Also included are several other works from the period. An essay by Hugh M. Davies, who has written extensively about Bacon, discusses his influences and sources of imagery for this body of work. Also included is a previously unpublished interview with Bacon that Davies conducted more than 25 years ago that covers a variety of topics. The book, rounded out with a chronology and selected bibliography, marks a major step forward in the study of this vitally important and influential 20th-century master.

Essay by Hugh M. Davies.
50 color and 6 b&w.
7.75 x 10 in. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An ImportantExamination of the Oeuvre of Francis Bacon
Just when you thought you had every treatise about the edgy painter of confrontational imagery from the brush of Francis Bacon, up pops this well designed and written book on just how this amazing artist approached an image, an idea, and carried that to completion.Written by Bacon scholar Hugh Marlais Davies and including an interview with the artist that to my knowledge finds its first publication in this volume, this small but impressive book served as a catalogue for the exhibition FRANCIS BACON: THE PAPAL PORTRAITS OF 1953 presented by the Museum of Contemporary art of San Diego in La Jolla, California in 2001.

The exhibition, and this accompanying catalogue, was powerful in that it focused on eight studies for the papal series (emphasizing the response to Velasquez' popes) that Bacon painted in three weeks time in 1953.Here is all of the energy and agony, the distillation of Bacon's view of the Church and the Universe, and the opportunity to scrutinize Bacon's technique of drawing to painting that makes these portrait studies so important to artist, scholar and art lover alike.

As in the exhibition, the portraits are ordered in a circular fashion in the main hall, and this installation is reproduced well in this volume.Then each portrait study is individually presented with the exceptionally educational essay by Davies. One leaves this books the same way the exhibition impressed the visitors - informed, appalled, fascinated and moved.An important document in the books on the life and works of Francis Bacon.Grady Harp, March 05
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This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1870 edition by Longmans & Co.; etc., London. ... Read more

Product Description
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format.Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

excellent
I have several books on Bacon, and this is by far the best.This book is actually one of the best artist monographs I have seen in terms of images.There are 195 full color plates, along with 21 gate-folds of Bacon's triptychs--and these are LARGE plates too.Small essay in the beginning, but if you just want to look at Bacon paintings, buy this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Francis Bacon was born in Ireland of English parents in 1909 and died in 1992. Self-taught, he expressed the satirical, horrifying, and hallucinatory in such works as Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944, Tate Gallery, London). His artwork is known for its bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery. ... Read more

Product Description
This exhibition catalogue is not a retrospective but rather an examination for the first time of the artist's work within a network of relationships and influences from the Old Masters to the artists of the twentieth century.

The eminent English painter Francis Bacon (19091992) is known for his brutal, haunting and grotesque portraits of man and beast. In this eyeopening study Bacon stands besides artists like Velazquez, Rembrandt, Titian, Ingres, Degas, Schiele, and Van Gogh - his real sources. To support this thesis, the text draws connections between Bacon and his predecessors according to themes: Bacon's papal portraits, the Motif of the Scream, Bacon and Surrealism, Mirrors and Reflections, the Cage Motif.This sumptuously illustrated book offers a firsttime study of a modernist's work in relation to the masterpieces of art history.

Exhibition schedule: Kunsthistorisches Museum ViennaOctober 15, 2003 - January 18, 2004
Fondation Beyeler, Basel, February 8, 2004 - June 20, 2004
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Customer Reviews (5)

Amazing artist.....
Francis Bacon has been called the greatest poet of the second half of the 20th century, and even those who deeply dislike his work find it memorable and horribly impressive.He is an artist obsessed by the horror of existence and the terrible vulnerability of being.He professed to see no hope, and yet his very life is a denial of such despair, because creativity can never really come without some belief in the meaning of what is created.Certain images recur again and again in Bacon's paintings, and the best known is that of the screaming pope, after Velazquez's great portrait of Pope Innocent X.Bacon refused to study Velazquez's portrait, preferring instead to paint from his memory of that painting's authoritarian majesty.
On the front of this text (the pope's image) Bacon has pushed down to the bottom half of the canvas and squashed the pope low in his chair.Around him, Bacon has built the suggestion of a cage or cell.He has marked him out with an arrow, as if this clenched and tortured image was an exhibit in the artist's chamber of horrors.
Bacon has also drawn from another famous image, Rembrandt's great Carcass of Beef, and has hung the animal's flayed and bloody flesh on either side of this human animal.Rembrandt painted his carcass with reverence; Bacon must see these carcasses as raw meat-the pope as he will be-and dangles them, almost insouciantly, behind the papal chair.
What a fabulously interesting, tortured artist----1909-1992-Ireland/England.
Fantastic text!!!

A great master learns from the great masters
This book illustrates an exhibition held in 2004 at the Beyeler foundation in Basel, Switzerland. The subject is to confront Bacon's paintings to thegreat masters who influenced him (Velasquez,Titian, Goya, Ingres, Picasso, Giacometti...)and who were omnipresent in his studio through photos of works, often in black and white, pinned on the walls. Many illustrations show that nothing Bacon painted sprang out of the blue and that he was a keen student of art history. The book shows how he transcends what his predecessors already expressed (passion, anxiety, the absurdity of life, the frailty of the human being...) and why he was one of the most powerful artists of the XXth century.

not what i expected
there are a lot of writings in this book, and a lot of other's art, but as far as francis bacon goes, if you want a book of his works, this is not a good book to get. the majority of the images are of all kinds of artists that they talk about in contrast with bacon's work. i was disappointed as well to the images they chose of bacon's work. not among my favorite at all. its a well made book, but not what i wanted, and now will have to buy another book souly on francis bacon

Just delicious!
Well, that's what we want in an art book- sensuality of paint, see the brushmarks, really good reproductions. I really enjoy this book.
This is a good chronicle of Bacon pushing the envelope of Painting- we see the manipulation of space and form as well as the darker side his subjects will explore. I've never readthe print part, I look at pictures and draw my own conclusions when dealing with books on serious painting. The reproductions are super, and well presented, so I highly reccomend.

A Comprehensive Analysis of the Influences on the Art of Francis Bacon
Fortunate were the ones who were privileged to see the exhibition FRANCIS BACON AND THE TRADITION OF ART in Vienna at the Kunsthistorisches Museum or at the Foundation Beyeler in Basel in 2003 and 2004.What an experience that must have been.Curator Barbara Steffen assembled on of the most comprehensive surveys of the works of Bacon and presented them in context with the ideas and works of art that influenced Bacon's genius. In Steffen's words 'This exhibit is the first opportunity to examine his works side by side with the artists who inspired him, and in this way to cast at least some light on how he conceived and devised his paintings'.

The legacy of this exhibition is well preserved in this stunning 'catalogue' book of the same title as the exhibition.The dignity of the effort is suggested in the numerous essays that accompany the book, essays by Steffen herself (The Papal Portraits, Veils and Striations as Motifs of Isolation, The Scream, The Cage Motif, The Representation of the Body: Velazquez - Bacon, Mirrors and Reflections); Verena Gamper (Bacon's Realism after Van Gogh, The Motif of the Crucifixion in Triptych Format, The Ambivalent Function of the Shadow); Olivier Berggruen (Bacon, Picasso and Surrealism, The Representative Portrait); Margarita Cappock (The Round, Bacon and Ingres, The Motif of Meat and Flesh); Alexandra Hennig (Francis Bacon: Portraiture After Representation).The quality of writing is scholarly and immensely readable. It is important to list these essays because they so well describe the flavor of this book and of the exhibition's thesis.

But the glory of the book is in the presentation of myriad photographs, reproductions of the works of all of the artists who informed Bacon's oeuvre, photographs of Bacon and his studio and friends, and the drawings and paintings of Bacon, many in gatefold presentation. The color reproduction is excellent and there are generous samplings of details to punctuate the writers' points.

Though there are many books about Bacon and of Bacon's paintings, few compare to this unique stance and enormity of information. Appendices to the book include the Interviews with Bacon by David Sylvester and by Michel Archimbaud as well as a fine biography, catalogue of exhibitions and bibliography.Even for those whose library shelves bulge with books on Bacon, this magnificent volume is indispensable. Highly recommended.Grady Harp, January 06 ... Read more