Francis Bacon : The Human Body

by David Sylvester

Paperback in very good condition. Published for an exhibition at Hayward Gallery, London from 5th February to 5th April 1998. Covers are lightly worn. Minor marks on a few pages. Contents are clear throughout. HCW

Genres: Art

101 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Anthony David Bernard Sylvester CBE, (21 September 1924; London – 19 June 2001; London) was a British art critic and curator. During a long career David Sylvester was influential in promoting modern art in Britain, in particular the work of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

Born into a well connected north-London Jewish family, Sylvester had trouble as a student at University College School and was thrown out of the family home. He wrote for the paper Tribune and went to Paris in 1947 where he met Alberto Giacometti one of the strongest influences on him. Though writing for a range of publications as a critic including The Observer and New Statesman the main thrust of his writing that direct response to the artwork was most important remained constant. Sylvester is credited with coining the term kitchen sink originally to describe a strand of post-war British painting typified by John Bratby. Sylvester used the phrase negatively but it was widely applied to other art forms including literature and theatre. During the 1950s Sylvester worked with Henry Moore, Freud and Bacon but also supported Richard Hamilton and the other 'Young Turks' of British pop art. This led him to become a prominent media figure in the 1960s. During the 1960s and 70s Sylvester occupied a number of roles at the Arts Council of Great Britain serving on advisory panels and on the main panel. In 1969 he curated a Renoir exhibition at the Hayward Gallery for which he was assisted by a young Nicholas Serota.

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a lovely opportunity to observe Bacon's work from a refined perspective. Most of the books about his art that I've read have been general studies that look at his work as a whole. David Sylvester, who's written extensively about Francis Bacon managed to do something important by focusing on a single aspect of Bacon's work and creating a nice short work to help art critics and fan understand how Bacon's approach to the human body reflects his aesthetic goals, the attitudes and paradigms that were changing art in the twentieth century, as well as illuminating Bacon's own understanding of the human body as a tool for personal understanding of self and expression. Can't recommend this book enough.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of a birthday present from the most miraculous friend in my life.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book from the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London in 1998. Just a small showing - 5 triptychs and 18 canvases - with no heads, animals, or landscapes, so just a concentration on the human body. Sylvester's text, which takes up the first 30 or so pages and is interspersed with gray scale details from the color plates, is fairly gnomic, wandering and without thesis. Although he does make the occasional useful observation, such as when discussing why he'd like to see Warhol paintings alongside Bacon's, he suggests what they have in common is:

Things that show the transfiguration of photographic images by accidental or seemingly accidental defacements that denote nothing but suggest a great deal.

The 18 color plates of the canvases are mostly full page, and best of all, the five triptychs are reproduced as three-page foldouts, which is so much better than seeing them reduced on one or two pages.