Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- Twentieth Century (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
Photographic paper, ink. 48.5 x 37.5
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Archival history
13/07/2011
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Black and white photograph of Francis Bacon taken by John Minihan in London in 1976 with the written caption ‘Francis Bacon was born in Dublin in 1909, he died in Madrid, Spain in 1992. Bacon was one of the most important painters of the twentieth century. I first met the artist in the early 70s and would photograph him in London and Paris. Bacon worked with photographs, many of his friends were photographers.’
Francis Bacon was born up the road on Baggot Street. But like many other Dubliners – from Edmund Burke to Brendan Bracken – he saw himself as an Englishman. This photograph of Bacon was taken by John Minihan in 1976. Bacon’s paintings were famously bleak and emotionally raw. Margaret Thatcher once called him “that man who paints those dreadful pictures.”
