Bacon’s Women

Bacon’s Women is the first exhibition in the United States to focus on Francis Bacon’s female subjects. Through a selection of portraits of his closest female companions, Bacon’s Women explores the artist’s relationship with the opposite sex, diving into this under-researched area of one of the twentieth century’s greatest painters. The paintings are accompanied by photographs taken by John Deakin, which Bacon commissioned and used as the starting point for many portraits.

Bacon was famous for the men in his life, particularly through his passionate relationships with Peter Lacy, George Dyer and John Edwards. His paintings are more commonly seen as images of the male body, contorted into extreme poses, conveying a wild array of emotions and inner demons. What has never been examined before in great detail, is that the artist was equally engaged with women, many of whom he had much longer-lasting relationships with. Throughout his chaotic life, women acted as caretakers, models and muses and were an ever-present force. His nanny, Jessie Lightfoot, who moved from Ireland to London with him and the infamous Miss Beston at Marlborough were hugely important to him and kept his life running. In the decadent world of post-war Soho, Bacon encountered Muriel Belcher, Henrietta Moraes and Isabel Rawsthorne, all of whom Bacon loved to paint. Together these three women are the subject of forty-six paintings, among which are some of the most tender and intimate works that Bacon ever painted.