Here are a few paintings inspired by reproductions of paintings by Franics Bacon. I gave up painting in this derivative manner because the works were too illustrational and lacked the raw intensity I responded to in the originals. I don't dislike these paintings, but I don't think much of them either. . . they remain an interesting experiment and a record of a very troubling time in my life which I have left behind me.
Scattergood-Moore
Photograph of Bacon in My Bardwell Studuio
oil on linen, (framed under glass), 1984
The emotional content evoked by Bacon's images, took me decades to acknowledge within myself. Until that happened, I lived trapped - like a Bacon 'Pope' - within an illusional cage of my own creating
SCREAMING TO GET OUT!
I enjoyed the sensation and controversy this painting caused and the notoriety it brought at the time I exhibited it.
Hanging Doll 1960/61
oil on cotton canvas
(whereabouts unknown)
In 1975, while attending the exhibition, "Francis Bacon: Recent Painting, 1968-1974," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, I experienced the "sensational" form and content of Bacon's paintings and the power they had to create strong contrasting reactions in viewers. . . and in myself.
Portrait of P.A.R., 1965
oil on linen
Painted from a photograph of "P.A.R." and influenced by the paintings of Popes by Francis Bacon... Years later I cut out the face of this painting and destroyed the rest of the canvas... frankly, I no longer remember whether the fragment exists or not.
P.A.R., 1965 oil on canvas
Private collection, Bell Island, CT
press image to enlarge
Bending Figure after Muybridge, 1966
oil on canvas
Private Collection, Boston
(painted from a photograph by Muybridge)
Nude on a Fur-Collar Cape, 1966
oil on canvas
(destroyed)
In the early 1960s there was a "market" for Bacon-like images . . . maybe I could have made a career of painting portraits and figures in this derivative manner... however, with Franics Bacon hitting his stride in the mid-1960s - painting his best and most original work - who needed my second-rate rip-offs!
3 Portraits of Francis Bacon
charcoal on museumboard
In the mid 1980s, after my wife divorced me, I returned to the theme of Francis Bacon. This time Bacon as the great homosexual and Lucian Freud as the great heterosexual.
