Study for Portrait of Pope Innocent X after Velasquez, 1989

Francis Bacon is one of the most recognized figurative painters of the 20th century. His unique approach to painting has been influencing artists like Jenny Saville or Damien Hirst. Bacon's signature style is characterized by an energetic and visceral way of painting, with flat backgrounds and a powerful sense of motion. Exploring the human figure in its most distorted aspect, his imagery is often defined as terrifying because of the emotional physicality he attributes to each brushstroke. For Bacon, life inspired art, drawing on the themes and people that surrounded him and on the feelings that were found within him. He aimed to create art that challenged the viewer and resonated with his own personal world. Considered one of the most important British painters of modern age, Bacon’s paintings are among the world’s most valuable works of postwar art.

This piece is a captivating remastering of one of the artist’s iconic earlier works of the same name. The original was created in 1953 and was revolutionary in its reimagining of western tastes in visual art, drawing inspiration from Diego Velasquez’s well-known Portrait of Innocent X. Over the years, Bacon played with several recreations of this image, retaining here the dark and foreboding tone of the 1953 original.