''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) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

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

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptised 6 June 15996 August 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the Noble court, court of King Philip IV of Spain, Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He i ...

's 1650 ''

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

''. 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 another one of Bacon's works, the ''

Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X ''Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X'' is a 1953 painting by the artist Francis Bacon. The work shows a distorted version of the ''Portrait of Innocent X'' painted by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of ...

'' 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 A ...

, 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 Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 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 paintings.Barker, Oliver.
Francis Bacon, 'Untitled (Pope)', in conversation with Michael Peppiatt
'. London:

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

, 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 and ...

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 Cultural depictions of Pope Innocent X Oil on canvas paintings Portraits by British artists 20th-century portraits

See also

References

Sources