"Freud first met fellow-painter Francis Bacon in 1945, when both went to stay for the weekend with another painter, Graham Sutherland. Freud said of Bacon 'Once I met him I saw him a lot'; he became the person Freud turned to for stimulus and provocation. Bacon painted this portrait of Freud in 1951, working not in front of his subject but using a photo of the writer Franz Kafka, whose work Freud admires. In the following year, Freud painted Bacon's portrait in oils on a small copper plate, sitting so close to his subject that their knees touched. That portrait was stolen in 1988 when it was on loan from the Tate to a gallery in Berlin ( same portrait as above, of Bacon )."
"Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud Common Stature as Painters, Diverse Approaches to Painting.
Contemporaries Francis Bacon (born Ireland, lived / active United Kingdom, 1909-1992)
and Lucian Freud (born Germany, lived / active United Kingdom, 1922- ) shared many unique
qualities: tough constitutions, whimsical attitudes, and independent minds (Sinclair 175).
Those minds developed compelling depictions of the human form, figures that often evoked harsh feedback from modern critics.
Despite similarities in personality and artistic experience, Bacon and Freud painted with distinction.
These longtime friends, considered inseparable in the 1950s and 1960s, orchestrated portraits of each other that demonstrate individualism (Farson 250-251).
Each extended his singular, personal approach to a wide range of imagery.
Should one survey a Bacon retrospective, he or she would find psychological anguish –
content that some might consider more appropriately produced by the grandson of Sigmund Freud (Feaver 14).
While Bacon intentionally disfigured for emotional impact, Freud frequently created more realistic human bodies that otherwise lacked humanity. Their lifeless expressions and colors create the presence of an object rather than a person.
Although Bacon publicly decried any expressionist tendencies, and Freud purported a more compelling interest in impasto brush strokes over personal expression, both artists often provoked passionate interpretation of their work (Peppiatt 31).
Undoubtedly, Bacon and Freud are both respected as masters of modern figurative painting.
By comparing the style and technique of Bacon’s triptych "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" (1969, oil on canvas) with Freud’s "Reflection with Two Children" (self-portrait, 1965, oil on canvas), the artists’ distinct characteristics emerge.
Bacon believed distortion to be the most appropriate way to convey fact with his paint (Yard 8).
Many interpreted his asymmetric forms as chilling, riled, fevered with anxiety and terror, immersed in emotional turmoil. When asked about his content – which ambitiously included humans and animals, figures and portraits – Bacon replied:
“People always seem to think that in my paintings I’m trying to put across a feeling of
suffering and the ferocity of life, but I don’t think of it at all in that way myself.
You see, just the very fact of being born is a very ferocious thing, just existence itself as one goes
between birth and death. It’s not that I want to emphasize that side of things – but I
suppose that if you’re trying to work as near to your nervous system as you can, that’s
what automatically comes out … Life … is just filled, really, with suffering and despair."
More, here..... :Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud 'once a surrealist', an original, truly great figurative painter with an equally brilliant & influential talent in his friendship with Bacon.
Freud paintings from the top one to four.
1)Boy Smoking (1950-1) by Lucian Freud
2)Large Interior W11 (after Watteau) 1981-3
3)Lucian Freud (English, 1922-), Francis Bacon, 1952, oil on metal, 17.8 x 12.7 cm, Tate Gallery, London.
4) ‘Head of a Man’, Oil on canvas, 1968.
Followed by, two of Bacon's paintings of Freud.
5)Francis Bacon, Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1951.
6)Portrait of Lucian Freud on Orange Couch
1965, Oil on canvas.
Videos, first from top to second respectively:
1) Bacon, London Weekend Television, 1985.
2)Lucian Freud, Retrospective at Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 16 Feb to 8 June 2008.
