Bacon on the Block

When Francis Bacon died in 1992, his obituary in the New York Times said, "private collectors were often loath to decorate their homes with [his work]." That would be the same Francis Bacon who recently set the record for a contemporary work at auction when one of his Pope portraits brought $52.7 million at Sotheby's. (No matter that it ceded its titled to the Rockefeller Rothko, which shattered the $70 million mark only lots later in the sale.)

In almost every major seasonal sale of contemporary art since 2005, there's been a record-breaking Bacon sold.

How did a man who (though he received critical praise from the art establishment) was considered by many to be, in former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's words, "that man who paints those dreadful pictures" become the auction house darling of the moment?

Bacon's work has always been expensive, says Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's worldwide head of contemporary art, but in the last six or seven years, enormous wealth has been created not only in America and the United Kingdom, but also in China and other emerging economies. These new collectors have a taste for Bacon.

"It just speaks to their sense of what contemporary art should be," says Meyer. What's appealing about Bacon's work, according to the auctioneer, is the juxtaposition of aesthetic pleasure with emotional pull. (Either the bidders snapping up Bacon's paintings have a stronger stomach for Bacon's particularly gruesome view of the world or what is considered gruesome has changed since Michael Kimmelman's Times obit.)

If you had to pinpoint when the market for Bacon's work got the jolt that would set it on such a meteoric rise, it'd be June of 2005, when Portrait of George Dyer Staring into a Mirror (1967) brought just over $9 million at Christie's in London, breaking the previous record for Bacon's work set four years prior. Five months later, Study for a Pope I (1961) fetched more than $10 million in New York at Christie's.

These pieces set the stage for the real Bacon breakout lot, Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe (1968). The painting is one of Bacon's first and few reclining female nudes, a subject old as art history that he modernized and made his own by depicting the figure writhing on a sort of dais as she shoots up. It is a disturbing image and, inasmuch, representative of the artist's affinity for the macabre. But it's also beautiful, with bold swaths and strokes of color that belie the dark subject of the painting. Sotheby's New York sold it for just over $15 million to an anonymous buyer.

The painting stood as Bacon's auction record until February, when Study for Portrait II (1956) got $27.6 million at Christie's London. Richard Gray Gallery's Andrew Fabricant placed the winning bid. With Study for a Pope I, it is one of the artist's 50-plus portraits of the Pope, inspired by Diego Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X from 1650. This version shows a quiet, almost defeated man hunched forward on his throne.

The Pope portrait was last in the public eye in 1963, more that 40 years ago. And this is another key to the secret of Bacon's recent jaw-dropping turns on the block — that, traditionally, relatively few of his works came up for public sale. Pilar Ordovas, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie's in London, says there's never been a lack of interest among private collectors, only a lack of Bacons to buy. So when a painting finally comes on the market and gets an impressive price, that entices other owners to consign their Bacons.

In May, Sotheby's announced that it would offer Study from Innocent X (1962), another Pope portrait, at its contemporary evening sale in New York. The painting depicts the Pope elevated on a throne and enclosed by axonometric lines, a technique of spatial organization that Bacon also used in the syringe painting. It carried an estimate of "in excess of $30 million." But it got an astonishing $52.7 million from an anonymous buyer. In less than one year's time, the world record for Bacon's work at auction has more than tripled.

Since then, Sotheby's has sold one of the artist's self-portraits on Bond Street to a private American collector for $43 million, and a slew of other Bacon paintings have been announced as lots in the upcoming fall auctions in London and New York. Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light will headline estimate of $14.1 million - $18.2 million. Sotheby's will have a diptych portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne in its own October sale, and stateside, there are Study for Bullfight No. 1, 2nd Version, expected to bring more than $35 million, and Self Portrait, more than $15 million.

Don't worry, we exhausted our repertoire of Bacon puns with "bringing home the bacon" and "high on the hog": Collectors have been going hog-wild for Bacon's paintings. Will they go whole hog this season?

Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light, Photo Credit: Christie's Images Ltd. 2007

Study for Bullfight No. 1, 2nd Version (left), Self Portrait (right), Photo Credits: Sotheby's