Head IV
Head IV | |
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Artist | Francis Bacon |
Year | 1949 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Location | Private collection |
Head IV, sometimes subtitled Man with a Monkey, is a 1949 painting by Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon, one of series of works made in 1949 for his first one-man exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, in London. It measures 82 by 66 centimetres (32 in × 26 in) and is held in a private collection.
The painting is part of a series of six works from the late 1940s depicting heads. Like Head III and Head V, Head IV is usually considered as an intermediate steps towards his Head VI (Head IV is sometimes confused with the much better known Head VI). A 1961 self-portrait of Bacon is also known as Head IV.
Head IV was bought in 1949 by Tony Hubbard, heir to the Woolworth fortune It entered the private collection of the New York broker Geoffrey Gates in 1963. It remains in a private collection.
Description
The painting depicts the upper half of a male figure in a suit, in a rear quarter view facing away from the viewer, in a space shrouded with vertical bands interpreted as curtains. The figure is possibly looking in a mirror, where a simian face looks back. Like Head III, it is painted in dark tones of grey and black on a beige ground with white highlights, which in this case pick out the man's shirt collar, his neck, ear and temple. The placing of the two heads suggest the man is dissolving into the monkey, although the man is sometimes described as having a monkey on his shoulder; the low contrast between the elements have been likened to a cinematic dissolve. It may be based on a photograph.
The work is said to have had an influence on Jonathan Yeo's portrait of King Charles III, His Majesty King Charles III.[1]
Series
Bacon's six Head paintings were first exhibited at the Hanover Gallery in 1949, alongside four other important early works by Bacon: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, Figure in a landscape, Study from the Human Body and Study for Portrait (also known as Man in a Blue Box).[2] Many are now held by major public collections.
References
- ^ Niami, Saam. "In Defense of Jonathan Yeo’s King Charles Portrait". Hyperallergic, 22 May 2024. Retrieved 20 June 2024
- ^ "Exhibition catalogues: A chronological selection of solo and group exhibition catalogues from the MB Art Collection. Archived 2015-01-28 at the Wayback Machine". MB Art Foundation. Retrieved 20 May 2017
External links
- Head IV (Man with a Monkey) (1949), francis-bacon.com
- Head IV (Man with a Monkey), 1949, Artimage
- Head IV (1961), francis-bacon.com
- Wyndham Lewis and Francis Bacon, Jan Cox
- About Modern Art, David Sylvester, p. 175
- The Gilded Gutter Life Of Francis Bacon: The Authorized Biography, Daniel Farson, p. 74
- v
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- Crucifixion (1933)
- Wound for a Crucifixion (1933)
- Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950)
- Figure in a Landscape (1945)
- Painting 1946 (1946)
- Study for Crouching Nude (1952)
- Two Figures (1953)
- Three Studies from the Human Head (1953)
- Study for Portrait II (After the Life Mask of William Blake) (1955)
- Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe (1968)
- Study for a Bullfight, Number 2 (1969)
- Three Studies of the Male Back (1970)
- Blood on the Floor (painting) (1986)
- Study after Velázquez (1950)
- Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953)
- Figure with Meat (1954)
- Untitled (Pope) (c. 1954)
- Study from Innocent X (1962)
- Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd version 1971 (1971)
- 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. Eliot's Poem "Sweeney Agonistes" (1967)
- Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants (1968)
- Triptych, 1976 (1976)
- Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus (1981)
- Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988)
- Triptych–August 1972 (1972)
- Triptych, May–June 1973 (1973)
- Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer (1964)
- Portrait of George Dyer Talking (1966)
- Three Studies for George Dyer (1967)
- Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967)
- Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969)
- Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1976 (1976)
- Three Studies for Self Portrait (1973)
- Self-portrait (1973)
- Three Studies for Self-Portrait (1979)
- Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86 (1985–86)
- Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981 book)
- Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998 film)