Inside Francis Bacon: the mystery of his drawings
Interview with Christian Lovatelli Ravarino, by Andrea Varacalli
1st January 2007

A never seen photo, F. Bacon with the Spanish Lover in Sicily

The mystery of Francis Bacon, the draughtsman, and that it was believed he did not draw, recalls also other enigmas, including biographical detail: Bacon’s curious morbidity and obsession with Irish terrorism coupled with the rejection of the City of Dublin, the place of his birth.

We will speak later on about the drawings. But that it was obsessed from all that was military, terroristic, spy, war, are not only I to assume it in outlandish way, even for originality love, but they testify it its innumerable biographies. The guerrilla of IRA, according to the biographer Michael Peppiatt, would be quite to the base of its paintings. Law in fact in Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma: “later in life, when asked about the violence in his paintings he would often recall the civil tension had plagued Ireland throughout his childhood”. (1).

Francis

Was there a cultural Irish influence on Bacon’s imaginary aesthetic?

Whilst Bacon didn't used to present himself as a particularly Irish person, there was a certain Irishness characterized in the deep levels of his psyche; not only for his vision and creativity (and his love of Joyce) but also for as a constant sense of threat and conspiracy by which he was rather obsessed: for instance coming in Italy he was quite sure The Red Brigades (the leading Italian terrorists) were going to kidnap him!

It was enthusiastically made curious from the figure of Seamus O'Donovan, main connection during the second world war between IRA and the Nazis, individual that it would have withdraw willingly if we were not resolutions dissuader it, like the most beautiful German spy, the captain Herman Goertz, than in years forty it ran about far and wide in Lega Gaelica. To such purpose Francis asked The Irish Times - without to obtain answer - the copies of articles published after the conflict in which Goertz it provocatively recalled the strategic abilities to IRA.

Successful being to obtain photocopies of articles through the Department of State is one of the small gestures with which, with all the respect for its affective involvement, I wanted to demonstrated to him I was different from the plethora of parasites from which the life was suffocated all. Its passion care these thematic ones was in degree to be involved also its interlocutors. From how much it turns out to me, it was the same Bacon to give to the adored Giacometti bestseller of the Carrè,The Spy who came in from the Cold that, as James Lord in its “To Giacometti Portrait” remembers (2), fascinate it to such point from stopping to work until completed reading and succeeding in to think to rewrite it.

Me with Nicholas Turner

Of many unforeseeable aspects of the character of the uncanny and unknown Bacon remains his vast drawing out put, of which its existence was unknown but that it turns out they were all donated to me by Bacon. It can tell the details and the motivations of such a bequest?

Self portrait

For how much the occasion regards me represents a memory for which I find difficult, if not useless, to give a motivation or reasons for them being given to me. For who it knew truly its nature there is nothing of unheard – of or incredible in this gesture and the things in reality were much less mysterious than how much it can sceptically be thought.

In 1977, when I went to Rome on occasion of the Medical festivity of farewell of Balthus to Villa, Francis proposed to me to live with him in London. I did not know if Bacon had yet met John Edwards, or that Edwards was the boyfriend of ‘Phil the Till’ (Philip Mordue), a handsome blonde boy to whom he always remained faithful for twenty seven years.

Study for a portrait

In any case I was not neither a dyslexic nor incapable to write or to read like John, or neither a petty criminal like George Dyer, nor a handyman and thieving neighbour on the make, like Barry Joule. My official father Ravarino was the skilful arm of David Rockefeller in Italy and my natural father, Lovatelli Caetani, came down from one of the most ancient families of Europe. Above all, I wanted to make the journalist and not the maintained one. As I repeated to it various times are in love of your genius but not to the point to accept to become one small wheel of your machine. It was this, between the other things, to fascinate it but also to mark the secret nature of our relationship. If it had revealed that all had given me its more extraordinary drawings would be incurred in problems lawyers with the Marlborough, that demonstrated the own ferocity in guardian the own exclusive right with the painter during the judicial war waged by the Bacon Estate, but also would have hurt irretrievably who dedicated the life to it. For who it is asked as never it has not left me all or to the beautiful and rich Spanish lover Pablo (of which it comes published for before turns a photo and the whose generosity carried it to cover Francis of gifts, and not the contrary) the only possible answer is not that it perceived to us like various persons, and for this we fascinated it more also than John or of the other felons (not John, who was a nice person) to which he had been accompanied in the course of the years and that, in bottom, were ashamed to live with him. That we were various we demonstrated the fact to it that I had refused to go to us to living while Pablo had fear he knew of his homosexuality.

Tribute to Francis Bacon

When, turning disinformed peolple laughable, in the introduction to the catalogue of the Shafrazy Gallery, very cured from the Turinese Paola lGribaudo, John wrote “Even if I never we have been Francis lover he has left me all because I developed his paternal sense” (3) he alluded, for how much can seem incredible, to something possible true. To savour again sense of family, that from which it had been hunted like a scabby dog when he was sixteen years old because it did not want to make the jockey and the one which, like homosexual only obsessed from the job, could not never have allowed itself in traditional sense, was perhaps for Bacon a secret aspiration still more urgent of love. It was for that it left all an illiterate nearly, as the English press defined the poor Edwards merciless. Illiterate, perhaps, but every day with him, while the splendid Spanish lover and the undersigned were proud of this tie until remained hidden.

He is for that in a famous article of 1998 one of the correspondents from Italy of The Independent he puts in mouth puts to the present director of the Marlborough Gallery, Kate Austin, this affirmation: “The painter knew of this fable of the drawings and he was upset.”

I have always thought that one of the most formidable guaranties to the authenticity of these drawings, apart the high quality of the sketches, is the grotesque absurdity of the critics posthumous objections that some sources made me (like Kate Austin’s interview in The Independent).

We take the declaration of Kate Austin. Then: a) I and the painter not were never meet to you b) nevertheless I had published in Italy many interviews where I made to mean that the painter gave me its drawings and even had, non-authorized, organized an extension in one of the most famous galleries than Bologna - we speak about 1980 - seen and admired from some of the most famous Italian painters (between which Publio Mandelli, Tano Festa, Sergio Romiti, Pirro Cuniberti), exhibition about which he was spoken also in England. c) quite the Italian branch (office) of the Marlborough wrote a letter insinuating that I had steal them to you. c) the Marlborough Gallery of London, that it had thirteen years of time in order to verify if the designs were authentic or less (the painter will die to the end of 1992) decided NOT TO MAKE NOTHING). Epilogue: after nearly twenty years the famous article of 1998 in The Independent, it insinuates that the history is “debatable”!?

With Eddie Grayr

The Marlborough Gallery was made up of ruthless directors rumoured to be able to sue a framer if he didn't frame a canvas of the painter following blindly to their instructions; as for the journalist Sylvester (it was said they were able to sue) if he didn't accept to submit the interview with Bacon being virtually rewritten by Valerie Beston who often censored Bacon. As Brian Sewell has observed:

“In the many Sylvester-Bacon interviews on which recent writers on Bacon so heavily depend. For the most part these were conducted on the premises of Marlborough Fine Art, Bacon's eximious dealers, in the presence of one of its directors, Valerie Beston, and the early drafts were not only much corrected and adjusted by her, but contain interpolations that are hers rather than theirs. Who was Miss Beston, and what her right to be both Bacon's recording angel and, occasionally, his voice?” (Brian Sewell, Miss B's Secret Shrine to an Unrequited Love, The Evening Standard, London, 27th January 2006).

Bacon told Alex Russell in 1981 that the Marlborough Gallery never paid Bacon on time, never paid him what was due, and cheated him out of tens of thousands of pounds. There are echoes of the Rothko case here when in 1976 Marlborough (New York) lost a case, similar to the Schwitters case, and even closer to the issues involved in the Bacon Estate case, when the Rothko Estate was given substantial awards against the gallery for breach of trust and fiduciary duties. I preserve the documentation that Kate Austin when I spoke with her at the Marlborough Gallery in 1994 asked me respectfully about the drawings and wished to see the originals for possibility of getting them authenticated as real. The painter was died from little and I had gone in a melancholy pilgrimage to London. I was so drunk that I introduced myself to the Marlborough. Then Kate Austin was assistant of the mythical one, not in positive sense, Valerie Beston and I defied it saying that I was connected to “the Italian” drawings of Francis and that if they had of the problems they could address to Scotland Yard.

Bacon Beaton - May 1951

Kindest, but with a lightning bolt of enormous surprise in the eyes, Austin replied to me completely in conciliating tone: “We know of these drawings of the painter and much would be interested to see them”. To demonstration of their good intentions, after it are consulted with “Miss B”, wrote me the telephone of Ms. Beston and it gave to me, to its name, two rare ones catalogues of the painter. I conserve among other things not only the famous ticket and the two catalogue but also the tape of our conversation from the moment that, is for the fact to be rather tipsy is because I did not trust a lot, secretly recorded the exchange (artfulness of which I make excuses myself, but that they are very content to have had).

Bacon's home in Paris

What succeed after that?

No, because I absolutely did not believe in their good faith and also in the peculiar hypothesis to give they straight of life or of died on the drawings thinking the outcome it was positive it however I would not have never made because he would have betrayed one of the deep reasons for which Francis had given them. It was for he a silent one vendetta against its atmosphere, against the obtuseness of its official fiancèes who undermined in the long run the talent, against the same Marlborough that, if also it is necessary to recognize that it was the much skilful in creating its myth, is also true, like it demonstrates the trial for the painter and that it forced the terrifying one (also of aspect) owner J.F. Loyd to escape to the Bahamas in order to avoid to pay of expenses, practically misused the disinterestedness of Bacon for the money, the inmates from the world (hundred of journalists was rejected to the sender always with same small set phrase: “the painter was much pleasing one but unfortunately it could not grant the interview because completely drunk under a table”, strange event inasmuch as during of our acquaintance never happened to me to see Francis completely drunk neither, neither under a table) and of fact undermined the complete development of its pictorial talent whose masterpieces are not sure of those of the last years.

You can see Bacon’s diminishing sense of power when looking at the embarrassingly bad late second versions of youthful masterpieces like Painting, 1946 or Three Studies to the Base of the Crucifixion.

Perhaps sure, I have been mistaken. Perhaps I should have accepted a deal with the Marlborough Gallery to make a lot of money and not care about anything or anyone but I refused to because in this case I would have betrayed the memory of the painter and saying nothing to the Marlborough about drawings had a kind of vendetta against them who had cheated and blackmailed Bacon.

Centenary year of Burlington Magazine dedicatet to works on paper of Francis Bacon

Which authority exists for authenticating the drawings?

Better, even if the problem is just to understand if there still exist ‘authorities’ of reference, or an absolute ‘authority’. I allow myself somed oubt. Apparently today they are the Estate of Francis Bacon and Galleria Shafrazy-Faggionato (but things are changing). Before the year 2000, when the Marlborough Gallery lost the rights and the Bacon Estate took the place (apparently directed from the stained glass architect Brian Clarke, an alleged ‘friend’ of John Edwards) sent a dozen of the drawings in order to demonstrate that I did not have any fear, not to say absolute confidence in them. They received me with thousand salaams and lavished in thousand moine when I potentially authorized them to sell some drawings in order to pay huge expenses of the legal war against the Marlborough Gallery. They asked me, but in spite of the promise never gave back, the letter of accusation to its entourage from signed he and struck me to machine, in which Francis left me the drawings. They asked to me to testify against the Marlborough Gallery in the trial, and even made me go to London to see their lawyers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer of 65 of Fleet Street, London. The trial at last concluded, largely because of the premature death of John Edwards, and on February 6th, 2002, the High Court in London dismissed the claims brought by Brian Clarke against the Marlborough Gallery, on behalf of the Bacon Estate, who had decided drop the case. And suddenly without any reason they gave back fifteen signed drawings to me!! But if they doubted truly of the authenticity would not have had like minimum to destroy them and also to even denounce to me? Not that from such alleged ‘authorities’ like the Bacon Estate who had at first alleged urbi et orbs that the items taken by Barry Joule from the Reece Mews studio but in the public mind were allegedly given by the painter) were in my opinion ‘fakes’, but then enduring those scrawls without to conclude anything, and are themselves waiting for more ‘authoritative’ verification. We should all be asking ourselves: who gives the Bacon Estate the ‘authority’ to be an ‘authority’ on Francis Bacon and to ‘authentic’ what is really created by Bacon?

FB with the dreadful miss B.

For some unknown reason Barry Joule revealed his ridiculous and badly ‘pastiched’ studio memorabilia six years after Francis’ death; then in 1998 The Independent published an interesting but rather idiotic and incorrect article about my vicissitude and after some months Barry Joule suddenly remembered the sketches...his reasoning I think should had been this: well, some months passed after the mysterious unbelievable Italian-Bacon- story was published by English press and nobody from England made a legal action against that journalist.

Faggionato and Shaferazy were mediocre run of the mill galleries and their only ‘merit’ was that they were able to manipulate and take advantage of the naivitè and inexperience not to say illiteracy of John Edward to recreate from nothing their dubious credibility. The Iranian Tony Shafrazy, that it will pass to the history in order to have made the jail from young person having tried to destroy Guernica; the other, Faggionato, have made some time ago an interview to Alain Elkan of The Stampa newspaper of Turin in which “amoral and cynical” person allows itself to define Francis.

afp in the name of father d.hirst

You seem like one who doesn't recognize any authority on Bacon but himself, a very drastic questionable position. We were speaking about the phoney authorities; let’s speak about the trustworthy authorities.

I speak, for example, of his joint heir, Eddie Gray, a great jazz musician who has been the genuine and loyal friend of Francis, to the point to guard the keys of all its property during the absences of the artist and of being the one who to which John Edward addressed when she wanted to detach the threads with the painter. Nobody knows the life of Bacon in all its intimate details how much Gray. When of recent I have known it to London was suspicious in my cares. After he had carefully examined and taken time with me looking at the drawings, and they caused such an emotion in him causing an asthma attack (curing this disease knew the painter who was asthmatic) is remained so moved he decided to give to me the favourite leather jacket that belonged to Francis (Gray in fact has inherited from the painter his settee, table, lamp as well as some clothing). Bacon wore the the same jacket during his last travel in Sicily, shortly before dying, that remained unknown to all before this photo was published (see below).

A letter by Francis Bacon

Another true authority that I have not had fear to face in a my recent travel to London has been Michael Wojas, owner of the Colony Room, the exclusive club that has been Bacon's favourite haunt for forty years, the true temple of the memory of the painter. After Wojas had seen the drawings he embraced and kissed me and asked to show one there; for who it knows the life of the painter is nearly like if the Pope it asked to expose you in Saint Peter a piece of wood of your family recognizing it like cross of Christ. Among other things the Colony is a narrow space, completely covered from the relics of the painter and its atmosphere remained unchanged for forty years. Unfortunately I have mistaken the choice and I have sent one too much large. An other extraordinary person has been Alyson Hunter, perhaps one of the greatest photographer of English art and better friend than Daniel Farson (whose biography of the painter is the most irreplaceable masterpiece on Francis that I have ever read) that he has introduced these otherwise unapproachable persons to me.

Francis in Sicily with the jacket E. Gray gave me

What has been the attitude of our art historians to the drawings?

It is not easy today to establish who is the greatest reference Bacon- expert between the living historians of the art. Maybe the severe German Professor Wieland Schmied, whose book Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict perhaps has become a seminal work on the painter, it’s not a case he was the only one to be invited by the painter in the party of his collectors. Recently I’ve been in his beautiful home in Berlin and after he studied a selection of the drawings with a deep and extraordinary intensity he told me: “What is the problem Christian, you have a valuable treasure trove.”

Another ‘art expert’ is David Alan Mellor, Professor of Art history at Sussex University, in whose opinion is that the clumsy sketches scribbled by Barry Joule could have been made by the hand of Bacon and this then had the immediate effect for the Bacon Estate to withdrew the lawsuit they made against Barry Joule for the ‘archive’ forgeries.

According to the artist and creator of the most famous website in the world on Bacon, Alex Russell, Philip Mordue has evidence of Joule’s ‘forgery’ tactics. Mordue said to Russell that he had lent Joule a three volume art book in pristine and mint condition but when Joule returned the books they were all covered in art studio-type grubby marks which were just like those ‘doctoring’ marks as seen in Joule’s ‘Bacon Archive’. Russell also observed that Mellor is rather like Sylvester in being set up an ‘authority’ or ‘expert’ on Bacon – and in Sylvester’s case he said Bacon never drew and felt Bacon had lied to him in saying that he never make preliminary sketches; Mellor has not conclusively proven that Joule’s ‘archive’ is made by the hand of Bacon; yet Serota and the Tate seem to have fallen for the fraud by acquiring more than 1,200 items from the ‘Barry Joule Collection’.

Regarding Mellor, Sylvester, Serota and what to do with his ‘archive’, Joule said in an interview with Art Review: “I was not sure what to do. Also I did not wish to do a disservice to his art, so I locked everything away in a bank. It stayed there for over four years. Eventually in July '96 I showed it jointly to Professor David Mellor and David Sylvester. They were both knocked out by the power of the work and of the enormous struggle depicted therein of Francis battling to create his art. Sylvester immediately suggested that I give everything to the Tate Gallery archives and phoned Nicholas Serota to tell him of the find. I, however, did not want everything to disappear into the depths of the Tate's basement.” (Barry Joule, Bacon's Secret Sketches, Art Review, December/January 1999). Joule shows just how easily taken in and conned our so-called ‘art experts’ can be!

Another very great historian of the English art is Edward Lucie Smith (that he stops the world-wide supremacy in the sale of art books) that knew Bacon very well and that sure, in case us it had been some anomaly, manipulation or addirittira counterfeiting of the vicissitude, would have known to say it in a recent edition of Art Fair to Bologna during which I have had way to meet it In that occasion we have passed with all the day and creed that the tapes of my interview, duration various hours, testify the respect and the alive curiosity with which one has been interested of my history.....He saw in another occasions a large selection of the drawings and he his literally in love with the sketches Francis gave me. In order not to speak then about the gratefulness that I must to Bacon-experts like Margarita Cappock, in charge of the reconstruction of the Study of the painter to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, which, without to ask null in exchange, it has spontaneously recognized the importance of mine corpus in the number of the centenarian of the prestigious review Burlington Magazine in great part dedicated to the works on paper of the painter. Like then not mentioning the meaningful one, exquisite affability and the interest with which Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery (the only institution to the world to which Francis he has donated a Triptych) has reacted to my provocation: I sent in fact two drawings saying that, also in quality of in charge of the Institute for the control of the authenticity of the works of art in England, if had doubted of their authenticity would have had to denounce to me. What I would want could be acknowledged also from the most sceptical of the readers is that not he has been a single expert, specialist, or also only intimate of the life or the art of Bacon with which I have been confronted, than has not only been able to find I seize with which refuting to me but that it is not remained, at least to the appearance, deeply made an impression from the drawings. From the former director of the British Museum, Robert Anderson, to put into effect the Director of Group Exhibitions of the Christie's of London Anke Adler-Slottke, until the greatest European collector Ernest Beyeler (excellent the way in which in its extraordinary book/interview The Passion de art. the Entretiens avec Christhope Mory underlines the criminal way with which the Marlborough she tied to himself the artists without a contract, as she happened for Bacon) which has had the humbleness to write a letter to me in which, beside the auguries of good outcome, it defines itself not enough picked for being able to decide on my vicissitude.

Francis Bacon happy in Italy

Until arriving to Nicholas Turner, feared by the counterfeiters, probably the greatest living expert about ancient drawings, who renounced to the billions of the Getty because discovered inside a lot of fakes and that he wanted to meet to me in Italy near a its collaborator to Lombardic Mass. I was informed that if the hand of some counterfeiter had glimpsed he would have denounced to me, but I didn’t worry about this possibility at all. After examining a selection of the drawings for approximately one hour, he then raised in order to embrace me, making an extraordinary observation to me: “I don't know in modern art drawings at the same time so violent and so accurate.”

In conclusion, for who it has a minimum of good faith and of acquaintance of the art and Bacon, it would have to be enough the vision of one of my drawings in order to collapse on his knees crying from the emotion (and there is who has made it). If instead the observer it is in bad faith, also in front of the evidence of a video in which Bacon it is realizing them saying happy for giving them to that crazy, once even beautiful, of the Italian-American journalist, it would say that it is a video counterfeit of the CIA.

At Colony

In Italy that type of attention and continuation has had the vicissitude of the drawings of Bacon?

I have never had legal problems for the drawings but an insane crazy trial some years ago (that I WON) in the Italian city in which generally I live, Bologna...the absurdity of the trial is demonstrated by the fact that the plaintiff (complainant) was and REMAINED unknown...it was rumoured was a nasty vendetta of Italian secret service against which I wrote a lot defending American secret service if anything....on the contrary ,in the same period, who defended and encouraged me were some of the most Italian famous painters (Pirro Cuniberti, Gorgio Tionelli, Wolfango,Concetto Pozzati, Antonipo Saliola) who were so in love with the drawings to gave me for a little sketch a big painting.

Me with Michael Wojas at Colony

First between all some of the greatest Italian painters, to whose look I suppose were arduous much to tell of the fibs, than they have demonstrated to their enthusiasm exchanging important pictures to me also only for a small sketch of Bacon. I refer to names like Wolfango, Pirro Cuniberti, Concetto Pozzati, Giorgio Tonelli, Antonio Saliola. I speak above all about a great master like Leonardo Cremonini, with which Francis debuts to the Hanoover Gallery of London, that it carried the painter to run about in Vespa for Rome during its before visit in Italy and that is not a case Bacon went to find to the Eolie Islands shortly before dying. Can itself indeed be believed that to a genius like Cremonini, considered from many the greatest figurative living together to Lucian Freud, as well as intimate friend of Bacon for all his life, was possible to tell of fables? When it saw them had a simply sublime gesture and asked me: “I can embrace them?” “Who?” I answered obtusely. “The drawings. I love them already!”

Giorgio Soavi under his
Sutherland's portrait
with a drawing

I cite then critical most serious and incorruptible like Rossana Bossaglia, than them defense public during a conference, therefore like the more wine important producing of the Emilia Romagna, Carlo Gaggioli, that it accommodated me and Francis for a drunk South Sea islander and that never has not made itself to intimidate from who, with debatable methods, believed to doubt his testimony, until the most refined and honest Lombardic antiquarian framer, Lillo Bolzani, than has always generous been offered once to show for its international customers in its wonderful one show room. But I speak above all about he who has rendered possible many of these contacts: Giorgio Soavi.

Photo Daniel Farson

Giorgio, for Giacometti, Sutherland, Balthus, considers the greater geniuses of art of this century, has been not only the preferred writer of art but also a precious friend and a point of reference without whose support they didn’t move to Italy (all obviously except Bacon: also to Soavi in fact he told Valerie Beston the story that he was sozzled under a table).

Giorgio Soavi was also remarkable in describing the geniuses's psychology even when describing how Balthus became moved saying farewell to his friends or how Giacometti smoked a cigarette.

When I went it to find in its splendid Cortina d’Ampezzo villa, upholstered with portraits that they had made personages of Sutherland and Giacometti it, and nevertheless I saw to be touched itself in front of the drawings was for me an unforgettable moment. The Marlborough Gallery had still not lost the rights and I was exhausted. It instead played its credibility and all its multiple contacts of highest level to support me. I’ll never be grateful enough.

In conclusion, today the majority of the people inside the art world still assume that Bacon didn’t used to make preliminary drawings, or either that he was a very mediocre draughtsman. I think they all ought to be ashamed.

Eddie Gray watching the drawings

C. Lovatelli Ravarino with FB's preferite jacket

To get in touch with Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino for any information: info@cristianolovatelliravarinonews.com

This article is an abridged and amended version originally published in Les Enfants Terribles

(1) "Francis Bacon:Anatomy of an Enigma" Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1996, pag. 13
(2) Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York
(3) "Eggs Was a Diamond" pag. 7

New York - 20 Dec 2006

A Major Exhibition of Paintings by Francis Bacon at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Francis Bacon in the 1950s, is opening at the Milwaukee Art Museum on January 27 April 15, 2007. The exhibition features nearly fifty paintings from the period in which Bacon was at the height of his creative powers. In this intensely fertile time, many of Bacon's themes screaming popes, howling dogs, and haunting figures trapped in tortured isolation began to materialize as the man himself was becoming one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century.

The Colony Room

During the 1950s, painter Francis Bacon began to formulate the iconography of his dark and troubled world in paint. The exhibition, Francis Bacon in the 1950s, opening at the Milwaukee Art Museum, January 27 April 15, 2007, features nearly fifty paintings from the period in which Bacon was at the height of his creative powers. In this intensely fertile time, many of Bacon's themes screaming popes, howling dogs, and haunting figures trapped in tortured isolation began to materialize as the man himself was becoming one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century.