Bacon at the End of the Second World War

1 Landscape (1943)

 2 Study for a Figure (1945)

 3 Man Sitting (1945)

   4 Figure in Landscape (1945)

 5 Standing Man (1945)

  6 Painting (1945)

7 Study for Figure I (1945)

 8 Man with Cap (1945)

 9 Landscape with Car (1946)

10 Study for Figure II (1946)

 11 Study for Man (1948, destroyed by artist sometime after 1963)

Francis Bacon painted the pictures displayed here between the years 1943 and 1948.  There certainly feels like a lot of cohesion within this group of figures and landscapes.  Certain motifs, the microphones and the palm plants, faces covered, missing or erased, mouths opened gaping in otherwise shadowed faces, recur.  He was beginning to find his way of conveying the sensations that moved him most resonantly and deeply.  These are the most interesting of his work for me because of their freshness and uncertainty.  I like that they’re so much messier than his later work.