Figure Study II (1945-46)

Francis Bacon

oil on canvas

Bagshaw Museum and Art Gallery, Wilton Park, Batley (Kirklees Museums and Galleries) Huddersfield Art Gallery (Kirklees Museums and Galleries)

Classification:

Painting

Materials:

Oil, Canvas

Physical Object Description:

Bend figure with screaming mouth and the eyeless face of a sub-human creature.

Dimensions:

145 x 128.5 cm

Accession Number:

1984.4818 (GML 2040)

Credit:

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 1952

Scheme:

Historic Purchase by Purchaser (1914-2008)

Ownership history:

Purchased from Alex Reid & Lefevre Gallery, London by Sir Colin Anderson (1904-1980) for the Contemporary Art Society, 1946 (for £176); presented to Bagshaw Museum, Batley / Batley Art Gallery (Kirklees Museums and Galleries), 1952; transferred to Huddersfield Art Gallery, 1974

Relationship:

Sir Colin Skelton Anderson Alex. Reid & Lefevre, Ltd (The Lefevre Gallery), London Bagshaw Museum and Art Gallery, Wilton Park, Batley (Kirklees Museums and Galleries) Huddersfield Art Gallery (Kirklees Museums and Galleries)

Subject:

Pain, Man, Animals (farm), Scream

Figure Study II (1945-6) by Francis Bacon was purchased by the Contemporary Art Society from Alex Reid & Lefevre Gallery, London by Sir Colin Anderson (1904-1980) in 1946 (for £176). It is also the first work by the artist to enter a public collection in UK when the painting was presented to Batley Art Gallery, now Huddersfield Art Gallery (Kirklees Museums and Galleries), in 1952. A similar but less harrowing Figure Study I (1946) - acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh as late as 1998, after the artist's death - is a figure study only by implication; the trilby hat, and the same tweed overcoat used in the Huddersfield picture, from which a deformed, screaming figure emerges, suggest a human presence.

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