Invasion 2018 - Pip Utton - Bacon

Fri, Feb 2, 7:30 pm

Bacon
Described by critics as the greatest British painter since Turner and by Margaret Thatcher as ‘that dreadful man who paints those horrible pictures’, Francis Bacon remains one of the most challenging and controversial artists of all time. Bacon’s paintings have the power to horrify, excite, disgust, revolt and haunt. It is impossible not to react to his work.  It was probably not only the paintings that so distressed Mrs Thatcher but the man himself. Francis Bacon could spend his mornings painting, his afternoons and evenings drinking champagne and eating, and his nights roaming around Soho dressed in fishnet stockings and a long leather coat looking for ‘rough trade’. His lifestyle full of alcohol, gambling and homosexual promiscuity has created an iconic enigma.