''Untitled (Pope)'' is a circa 1954 oil on canvas panel painting by the Irish born, English artist

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

, one in a series of many representations of popes he painted after

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...

's 1650 ''

Portrait of Innocent X ''Portrait of Pope Innocent X'' is an oil on canvas portrait by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, executed during a trip to Italy around 1650. Many artists and art critics consider it the finest portrait ever created. It is housed in the Galle ...

''. Bacon was a harsh self-critic and destroyed a great many of his own paintings, many of which were created under the influence of drink. This work was long thought lost until it reemerged on the art market in 2016. It is closely related to Bacon's masterpiece, the '' Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X'' in the

Des Moines Art Center The Des Moines Art Center is an art museum with an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, modern art and mixed media. It was established in 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa. History The Art Center traces its roots to 1916, when the Des Moines As ...

, Iowa.Brown, Mark.
Portrait of Francis Bacon's violent lover to be auctioned at Sotheby's
. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 8 April 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2017 When asked why he was compelled to revisit Velázquez's Portrait so often, Bacon said that he had nothing against popes, but merely sought "an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner".Peppiatt, 147 Bacon was in the 1950s coming to terms with the death of a cold, disciplinarian father, his early, illicit sexual encounters, and a very destructive sadomasochistic approach to sex, all of which informed this series of masterpieces.Barker, Oliver.
Francis Bacon, 'Untitled (Pope)', in conversation with Michael Peppiatt
'. London:

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

, October 23, 2012 Commenting on the freedom with brushwork in this example, Bacon biographer

Michael Peppiatt Michael Henry Peppiatt (born 9 October 1941) is an English art historian, curator and writer. Biography Son of Edward George Peppiatt (died 1983), B.Sc, ARCS, of Silver Birches, Stocking Pelham, near Buntingford, Hertfordshire, technical ...

said that Bacon was a gambler by nature and habit, and would often return to paintings late at night, to attack them with a brush to see what would happen. If he disliked the results he would simply have them destroyed. A number of people around Bacon were aware of these traits, and instead hid away the paintings, which have been reemerging since the mid-1990s.

References

Sources

* Peppiatt, Michael. ''Anatomy of an Enigma''. London: Westview Press, 1996. {{DEFAULTSORT:Untitled (Pope) 1954 paintings Paintings by Francis Bacon Portraits of popes