Portrait of George Dyer is one of the many portraits Francis Bacon devoted to his partner George Dyer, a central figure in his life and art from the 1960s until Dyer's tragic death in 1971. In the painting the face is distorted in a brutal tension between attraction and dissolution: the flesh writhes, the eyes and mouth dissolve into almost liquid forms, as if identity itself were imploding. The background, often dark, neutral or monochrome, makes the figure stand out as if isolated in a mental space, almost a chamber of psychological torture.
Here Bacon expresses the complex bond between eros and death, love and destruction: Dyer becomes a vulnerable icon of desire, dependence and torment. With its emotional intensity, the portrait reflects the troubled relationship between the two and at the same time embodies Bacon's poetics of the flesh as the raw truth of existence.
Unique quality material
Print on handmade Amalfi paper Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in) With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in) Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges Frame: light brown beech wood and wood pulp, handmade
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