Bacon, Freud and The School of London

Two great artists, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, together for the first time in an Italian exhibition dedicated to the so-called “School of London”. The exhibition at the Chiostro del Bramante in Rome features works from Tate and covers over seven decades, from 1945 to 2004. This remarkable loan consists of over fifty paintings, drawings, and engravings by artists working in London in the aftermath of World War II. Francis Bacon (1909–1992), Lucian Freud (1922–2011), the history of British art and the spirit of a city, in an exhibition curated by Elena Crippa, Curator of Modern and Contemporary British Art -Tate. It can be visited from 26 September until 23 February 2020 at Chiostro Del Bramante in Rome.

The exhibition presents one of the most distinctive and fascinating chapters of modern British art. It celebrates the painters in Britain who strove to represent human figures, their relationships and surroundings in the most intimate of ways.

"I want the paint to work as flesh does."
Lucian Freud, 2009

Through a chronological and thematic approach, the exhibition illustrates the frailty and vitality of the human condition, starting with works by the two giants Bacon and Freud.

Left: Lucian Freud, Girl with a fig leaf, 1947; Right: Lucian Freud, Girl with a kitten, 1947

The opening room presents early portrait drawings including Girl with a Kitten by Lucian Freud.
Girl with a Kitten is one of eight portraits that Lucian Freud made of his first wife, Kathleen Garman. In this closely cropped composition, in which she is pictured against a beige wall, Garman holds a kitten by its neck in a tense grip, her knuckles especially prominent, seeming to half-strangle the animal without concern. Given that Garman was generally known as Kitty (a short form of Kathleen as well as a familiar term for a kitten), her treatment of the cat raises – and consciously leaves entirely unresolved – questions about her self-image. Every element in the painting is depicted with equal scrutiny, from the reflections in Garman’s pupils to the static energy of her wavy hair.

Left: Francis Bacon, Study for a Portrait, 1952; Right: Francis Bacon, Seated Figure, 1961

The second room focuses on a significant group of paintings and drawings of Francis Bacon’s isolated figures. He described his paintings as a ‘direct assault on the nervous system’.

“I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence, a memory trace of past events, as the snail leaves its slime.” Francis Bacon

His paintings are often based on a variety of photographic images. He was also fascinated by the expressive power of the mouth. In Study for a Portrait, the man appears to be screaming directly at a viewer, his mouth wide open and his teeth exposed. From 1947 until the end of his career Francis Bacon painted directly onto the raw and unprimed side of the canvas (rather than using the smooth, receptive surface provided by primed canvas), and in this work he emphasised the texture further, especially around the figure’s eyes and mouth, by rubbing sand into the paint.

Bacon’s portraits are explorations of the human condition as much as they are character studies, particularly in works such as Seated Figure, in which the identity of the sitter is not disclosed. They also represent a complex exploration of pictorial space: the figure is simultaneously posed among some elegant items of furniture and confined within a box-like frame. This device, which was one of Bacon’s trademarks, underlines the sense of isolation as well as generating a claustrophobic psychological intensity.

Left: Francis Bacon, Reclining Woman, 1961; Right: Francis Bacon, Figure in a Landscape, 1945

Bacon depicts naked bodies too. In Reclining woman, the figure appears to have been originally intended as a man. The male genitalia were covered over with a thin layer of paint. Unusually, the figure was cut from another canvas and pasted onto this one, on which the background was painted. Male nudes appeared in many of Bacon's paintings. He may have accepted the misidentification of this figure as a way of disguising its implicitly homoerotic imagery at a time when homosexuality was illegal.

He uses a similar technique in Figure in a Landscape. The painting is thought to be based on a photograph of Bacon’s lover Eric Hall wearing a flannel suit dozing on a seat in Hyde Park. A substantial section of the body has been overpainted, suggesting a black void. An open mouth can be discerned speaking into a microphone, a detail that may have derived from photographs of Nazi leaders giving speeches. The pastoral setting is therefore contrasted with the intimations of organised political violence, making this an early example of Bacon’s combination of aggression and everyday mundane reality.

In addition to Bacon and Freud, the show features a group of artists who have marked an epoch, inspired generations, and used painting to illustrate life: Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, and Paula Rego.

Left: Paula Rego, The Dance, 1988; Right: Michael Andrews, Melanie and me swimming, 1978-79

During the 1980s Paula Rego (b. 1935) created paintings inspired by her early life in Portugal. While the scene in her painting The Dance could represent a memory of folk festivals or 'festas', it also has a more profound symbolic meaning. The Dance can be read as a dance of life, representing the stages from a girl's childhood to old age. The rhythmic movement of the figures contrasts with the stillness of the setting, suggesting the balance between perpetual change and the essential continuity of existence.

Like Bacon, Michael Andrews´s (1928-1995) paintings evolved from real elements, such as photographs of people and places, together with his memories of them. For example, Melanie and me swimming is a painting of the artist and his daughter based on a photograph of them swimming together. Andrews developed this image so that it also refers metaphorically to Melanie's transition from family life to society.

Left: Leon Kossoff, Children’s swimming pool, Autumn afternoon, 1971; Right: Frank Auerbach, Primrose Hill, 1967-68

Frank Auerbach (b. 1931) and Leon Kossof’s (1926-2019) continuous commitment to the human figure and their enduring fascination with London are shown in dramatic and atmospheric works.

Kossoff's principal subjects are his immediate family and friends and the parts of London which he knows best. In the 1960s he set up a studio in Willesden, north London and in 1967 a swimming pool opened close by. He began taking his son there to teach him to swim, and the pool and its space provided him with a new subject. He made four large paintings of the pool between 1969 and 1972 of which Children’s Swimming Pool, Autumn Afternoon is one. All are distinguished by a lightness of touch and a sense of movement, noise and space.

The park at Primrose Hill in north London has been one of Auerbach's principal subjects. He worked daily on this painting for over a year, making more than fifty working drawings in all seasons and at different times, including midnight. The park's changing appearance influenced the development of the painting, which was continually scraped back and repainted.

Left: Lucian Freud, Girl with a White Dog, 1950-51; Right: Lucian Freud, Boy smoking, 1950-51

The exhibition ends with works by Bacon and Freud. Freud also painted male bodies and naked bodies such as Girl with a White Dog. The generous selection of Freud’s works shows how his honest depictions of model became more sculptural and visceral over time. Girl with a White Dog shows the artist’s first wife when she was pregnant. The sense that Freud gives of human existence as essentially lonely, and spiritually if not physically painful, is something shared by his great contemporaries, Francis Bacon and the sculptor Alberto Giacometti.

Boy Smoking 1950 stares out at the viewer with an ambiguous expression, although his brow is slightly furrowed and his eyes appear glazed, suggesting that he is lost in thought. The oversized almond-shaped eyes and the plump mouth in Boy Smoking are features that recur in the portraits Freud made early in his career, as can be seen in Girl with a Kitten for example.

Left: Lucian Freud - Standing by the Rags, 1988–9; Right: Lucian Freud - David and Eli, 2003–4

One of the highlights of the show includes Freud's Standing by the Rags (1988). The female nude has been Freud’s main theme for years. Standing by the Rags is one of Freud's largest paintings of the nude.

Of particular note is Freud's giant painting David and Eli (2003-4) features David Dawson, Freud’s studio assistant during the last twenty years of his life. The dog is Eli, one of Freud’s whippets. This is the second of a series of four large paintings that show Dawson alongside Eli or Freud’s other dog, Pluto. Many of Freud’s late nudes were noted for their uncompromising scrutiny of the human body, densely applying paint to explore the materiality of flesh. By contrast, David and Eli evokes an underlying tenderness, and the deep connection between man and dog.

Moreover, two special projects show how Chiostro del Bramante caters to the public’s interests. The audio-guide features the voice of Costantino D’Orazio, an art historian and scholar who will help visitors discover the works and careers of the artists in greater detail, by taking them on a fascinating journey through the London of the period. In an engaging manner, D’Orazio will describe lives and paintings, focusing on lesser-known details.

Chiostro del Bramante has always shown an interest in the cross-fertilization between different languages and in the direct engagement of the public. This innovative approach is further reflected in the exhibition teaser directed by Enrico Maria Artale, one of the most promising young Italian directors, who has already established himself internationally. For the first time in Italy, a film director will be interpreting and illustrating an exhibition in a short film which will serve as a prelude to the exhibition and introduce the story of a particular epoch and its leading artists.

This exhibition is organized in cooperation with Tate, London.

Reference: Tate, London »
Chiostro del Bramante, Rome »

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