Francis Bacon: Couplings

Exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery - Grosvenor Hill, London, 6 June - 3 August 2019

This book highlights a theme that preoccupied Francis Bacon (1909-1992) throughout his career: the relationship between two people, both physical and psychological. At its heart are two of the most uninhibited images that Bacon ever painted: Two Figures (1953) and Two Figures in the Grass (1954).

After completing these interrelated works, Bacon did not return to the subject until 1967, the year that homosexual acts in private were decriminalized in England and Wales, when he painted Two Figures on a Couch, also featured in this volume.