Study after Velázquez

Study after Velázquez

Study after Velázquez is a large 1950 panel painting by the Irish born, English artist Francis Bacon. After Head VI, it is the second of Bacon's long series of paintings influenced by Diego Velázquez's 1650 Portrait of Innocent X. The panel shows a full length view of the pope, engulfed in vertical folds that may be either the linings of a curtain or the bars of a cage.

The folds serve to emphasise the figure's isolation, and were drawn from devices used by Edgar Degas in the late 19th century, which Bacon described as "shuttering". He said that, to him the device meant that the "sensation doesn't come straight out at you but slides slowly and gently across".^[1]

The painting was intended as part of a series of Popes for an exhibition at the Hanover Gallery in September 1950. Following a crises of confidence, Bacon withdrew and destroyed the canvasses he had been working on. A number of works in the series, including this painting, re-emerged in the late 1990s, and are considered among the finest of his output. Before it re-emerged; it was often reproduced, tantalisingly, from a black and white photograph.^[1]

References

1 2 Dawson (2000), 53

Sources

Davies, Hugh & Yard, Sally, Francis Bacon. (New York) Cross River Press. ISBN 0-89659-447-5
Barbara; Sylvester, David. Francis Bacon in Dublin. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. ISBN 0-500-28254-4

Francis Bacon (artist)
Figures	Figure Study I (1945–56) Figure in a landscape (1945) Painting 1946 (1946) Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950) Study from the Human Body (1949) Study for Crouching Nude (1952) Dog (1952) Two Figures (1953) Three Studies from the Human Head (1953) Study for the Nurse in the film Battleship Potemkin (1957) Lying Figure (1966) Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe (1968) Three Studies of the Male Back (1970) Three Figures and Portrait (1975) Two Seated Figures (1979) Carcase of Meat and Bird of Prey (1980) Diptych (1982–84) Blood on the Floor (Painting, 1986) (1986)
Head series	Head I (1949) Head II (1949) Head III (1949) Head IV (1949) Head V (1949) Head VI (1949)
Popes	Study after Velázquez, 1950 Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) Pope I (1953) Pope II (1953) Pope III (1953) Pope IV (1953) Pope V (1953) Pope VI (1953) Figure with Meat (1954) Untitled (Pope) (c. 1954) Study from Innocent X (1962)
Triptychs	Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) Three Studies for a Crucifixion (1962) Three Figures in a Room (1964) Crucifixion (1965) Triptych inspired by T.S Elliot's 'Sweeney Agonistes' (1964) Three Studies for George Dyer (1967) Two Figures Lying on a bed with Attendants (1968) After Muybridge - Study of the Human Figure in Motion - Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water (1970) Triptych 1976 (1976) Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988)
Black Triptychs	In Memory of George Dyer (1971) Triptych–August 1972 (1972) Triptych, May–June 1973 (1973)
Male portraits	Study for Three Heads (1962) Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer (1964) Double Portrait of Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach (1964) Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud (1965) Portrait of Lucian Freud (on Orange Couch) (1965) Portrait of George Dyer Talking (1966) Study for Head of George Dyer (1966) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967) Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) Three Studies for a Portrait of Peter Beard (1975) Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1976 (1976) Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1978 (1978) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1980)
Female portraits	Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes (1963) Study for a Portrait (Isabel Rawsthorn) (1964) Three Studies for the Head of Isabel Rawsthorn (1965) Three Studies of Muriel Belcher (1966) Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho (1967) Three Studies of Henrietta Moraes laughing (1969) Female Nude Standing in a Doorway (1972) Sphinx: Portrait of Muriel Blecher (1979)
Self-portraits	Self-portrait (1973) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1973) Self-portrait (1973) Seated Figure (1974) Sleeping Figure (1974) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1974) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1976) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1979) Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86 (1985)
Summary articles	List of paintings by Francis Bacon List of large triptychs by Francis Bacon Triptychs by Francis Bacon The Black Triptychs Influences on Francis Bacon

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