Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma

By Michael Peppiatt

Francis Bacon was one of the most powerful and enigmatic creative geniuses of the twentieth century. Immediately recognizable, his paintings continue to challenge interpretations and provoke controversy. Bacon was also an extraordinary personality. Generous but cruel, forthright yet manipulative, ebullient but in despair: He was the sum of his contradictions. This life, lived at extremes, was filled with achievement and triumph, misfortune and personal tragedy.

In his revised and updated edition of an already brilliant biography, Michael Peppiatt has drawn on fresh material that has become available in the sixteen years since the artist’s death. Most important, he includes confidential material given to him by Bacon but omitted from the first edition. Francis Bacon derives from the hundreds of occasions Bacon and Peppiatt sat conversing, often late into the night, over many years, and particularly when Bacon was working in Paris. We are also given insight into Bacon’s intimate relationships, his artistic convictions and views on life, as well as his often acerbic comments on his contemporaries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781620876701

Michael Peppiatt

Michael Peppiatt graduated from Cambridge, where he edited Cambridge Opinion and wrote exhibition reviews for the Observer. In an international career spent between London, Paris and New York, Peppiatt has written regularly for Le Monde, the New York Times, the Financial Times, Art News and Art International magazine, which he re-launched as its new publisher and editor from Paris in 1985. He is the author of over twenty books including the definitive Bacon biography, Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (revised edition 2008). In 2005 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge for his work in the field of twentieth-century art. Peppiatt has also curated numerous exhibitions worldwide, and he is currently at work on a major retrospective contrasting the achievements of the two modern artists he most admires: Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon.

Reviews for Francis Bacon

[michaelbartley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

francis bacon was the archtype of a painter, highly talented and lived his own life his own way. he lived outside the rules of society and art. peppiatt is a fan of bacon, both the man and the artist. so am I