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Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

Oil and pastel on Masonite triptych by Francis Bacon (1944). Three biomorphic, screaming creatures — half-human, half-Erinyes — occupy orange-ground panels. Exhibited at the Lefevre Gallery in 1945, it announced Bacon's mature style and shocked the London art world. Tate, London.

Scholarly Significance

Bacon's debut triptych; the definitive image of postwar European existential anguish; key for critical reception and political context axes.

Notes

  • ·First exhibited at the Lefevre Gallery, London, April 1945 — critic Raymond Mortimer wrote that viewers left the room shaken.
  • ·The three forms derive from studies of the Furies in the Oresteia; Bacon owned a pocket Aeschylus.
  • ·The bandage on the left figure was Bacon's response to seeing medical X-ray images.
  • ·Bacon had destroyed most of his pre-1944 work; this triptych is effectively his public debut.
  • ·The 1988 second version (Tate) shows Bacon's return to this composition at the peak of his career.