Bringing home Bacon
QUESTION How did Francis Bacon’s studio end up in Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery?
FRANCIS Bacon, Dublin-born and one of the leading figure painters of the 20th century, died in 1992 and six years later, the Dublin gallery, now called the Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, managed to secure the rights to the studio from Bacon’s heir and from the executor of his estate.
The move came just in time, because after Bacon’s death, the prices fetched by his paintings began to soar to record levels. Just over three years ago, in November 2013, a triptych that he had painted in 1969 was sold at auction in New York for a worldrecord $142.4million.
Bacon was born in a nursing home at 63 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin, on October 28, 1909, although he had no Irish ties. His parents were both English; they had settled here not long before Francis Bacon was born. Neither of his parents had any Irish blood, so neither did Bacon himself.
His Australian-born father, Edward, was a retired major in the British Army, and came to Ireland to pursue his career as a horse trainer and breeder.
His mother Christina came from a Sheffield family that had made its fortune in steel.
The Bacon family’s first residence in Ireland was Cannycourt House, near the Curragh in Co. Kildare. For the duration of the First World War, the family moved to London, where Bacon’s father worked in the War Office. After the war, the family moved back to Ireland, despite the War of Independence and the Civil War.
The young Francis Bacon was sent to live with his grandparents, close to Abbeyleix, Co. Laois, although the Bacon family soon moved to Straffan, Co. Kildare. In 1924, Bacon was thrown out of the family home by his father, when he discovered his son posed in front of a mirror dressed in his mother’s underwear. The 15-year-old Bacon went to England, where the only formal schooling he had was from 1924 until 1926 at the Dean Close School in Cheltenham.
Relations between he and his family were chilly, to say the least, but he was close to his maternal grandmother, Granny Supple, who lived near Abbeyleix.
Bacon, unapologetically gay, led a chaotic life, drawn to such addictions as drink and gambling. The chaos of his personal life was reflected in his London studio. Then in 1998, the gallery in Parnell Square, Dublin, managed to secure the rights to his studio from the artist’s heir, John Edwards, and from the executor of his estate, Brian Clarke. The great artist had died in Madrid on April 28, 1992.
During the summer of 1998, the studio itself and all its contents were shipped to Dublin, where detailed work began on preserving and classifying all the material. More than 7,000 items were found and these were all catalogued on a specially designed database. It was the first computerised archive of the complete contents of the studio of a world-class artist.
The archive lists such items as 100 slashed canvases, 1,300 leaves torn from books, 2,000 items of artist’s materials, and even many vinyl records.
No used tube of paint or paintbrush went uncatalogued. But no artist’s palette was ever found; Bacon had used any surface he could find to mix his paints, even the walls of the studio.
The studio opened to the public in its new setting, the Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, in 2001, its utter chaos perfectly preserved. Ever since, it has been a remarkable feature of the gallery.
It was an astonishing coup by the Dublin gallery, which showed much foresight in bidding for Bacon’s studio, as in the years since Bacon’s death, his worth as an artist and the value of his paintings have continued to soar.
Peter Brown, Clondalkin, Dublin.
QUESTION Was there once a king of the Isle Of Wight?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, there was a formative Wight monarchy as described in The Mammoth Book Of British Kings and Queens, by Mike Ashley, a much more scholarly book than you might think from the title.
Stuf and Wihtgar (possibly father and son) became joint kings of Wight in 534. Wihtgar died about 544. The date of Stuf’s death is not known.
Nothing is known about the monarchy for the next 143 years.
Stuf and Wihtgar were clearly important, because Alfred the Great’s mother claimed descent from them.
The last king of Wight was Arwald, who was killed by Caedwalla, King of Wessex, in 687. Caedwalla was determined to convert Wight to Christianity, which he did by killing all the pagans, including the king.
Arwald’s brothers fled to Hampshire and converted to Christianity, but Caedwalla killed them anyway.