Francis Bacon: Man And Beast

Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 29 January - 17 April 2022

In 1969, Francis Bacon (1909-1992) became interested in bullfighting and painted a series of powerful works that evoke anguish and eroticism simultaneously in the contorted bodies of their beastly subjects. Twenty-two years later, a single ghostly bull was the subject of his final painting.

Bacon's paintings frequently eschew the distinction between man and beast; he renders his human subjects as primitive creatures driven by base instincts such as pain and fear, while his animal subjects exude a strangely human sensibility.

This exhibition catalogue concentrates on the role of animals in Bacon's work, with experts discussing his varied sources of inspiration, such as Surrealist literature and the photography of Eadweard Muybridge.