THE last portrait painted by Francis Bacon of his lover George Dyer will go under the hammer next month.
Painted in 1970, Study of George Dwyer was completed a year before Dyer’s death.
With an estimated price tag of £5-7million, it will go up for sale for the first time in more than 50 years next month.
The piece will be on offer at Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in London on Wednesday, March 6.
It is one of a handful of highlight pieces due to go under the hammer on the night, which includes the first Blue Period work by Pablo Picasso to be offered at auction in almost 15 years.
Francis Bacon's Study of George Dyer, goes up for sale next monthDublin-born Bacon completed Study of George Dyer a year before his lover’s death in 1971.
“The compositional catalyst was a photograph of Dyer taken by John Deakin in Soho in about 1964, one of a vast number found ripped, torn and paint splattered among the debris in Bacon's studio after the artist's death,” a Sotheby’s spokesperson explained.
The current owner, a private collector, bought the piece directly from the Marlborough Gallery in London in 1970.
“Charged with extraordinary intimacy and framed within a seductive dark background, the rare depiction of Dyer – at the time, the love of Bacon’s life – was included in the artist’s major 1971 exhibition in Paris, which marked the first time a living artist had been given a solo show at the Grand Palais in Paris, since Picasso,’ Sotheby’s adds.
The piece has only been seen once, briefly, in public since that exhibition.
The piece comes up for sale for the first time in 50 years“George Dyer was undoubtedly Francis Bacon’s greatest love, inhabiting a position of paramount importance across the grand theatre of Bacon’s life and work,” Tom Eddison, Senior Director, Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s London, said.
“His painterly incarnations of Dyer wield a power unlike any other and span the full extent of human drama and reveal their multifaceted, tempestuous and passionate love affair.”
He added: “This painting showcases a ferocious investigation and Bacon’s radical handling of paint; a visceral, emotionally charged response to his subject, unlocking what he called ‘the valves of sensation’.
“Selected by Bacon for inclusion in the single most important exhibition to be held in his lifetime and held in the same private collection for more than half a century, this rare small portrait carries a psychological intensity as great as any seminal painting in Bacon’s momentous body of work and is a poignant tribute to the Bacon-Dyer relationship.”
Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction takes place in their London auction house from 6pm on Wednesday, March 6.
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