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This complete set of three lithographs in colours, comprising the triptych, are each hand signed in pencil by the artist “Francis Bacon” at the lower right margins.
Each sheet is also hand numbered in pencil from the edition of 180, at the lower left margin.
It was published by Galerie Lelong, Paris, in a limited edition of 180 hand signed and numbered impressions based on Bacon’s painting “Triptych August 1972”.
Note: This work is generally considered one in a series of ‘Black Triptychs’ which followed the suicide of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Dyer appears on the left and Bacon is on the right. The central group (as depicted in this panel) is derived from a photograph of wrestlers by Edward Muybridge, but also suggests a more sexual encounter. The seated figures and their coupling are set against black voids and the central flurry has been seen as ‘a life-and-death struggle’. The artist’s biographer wrote: ‘What death has not already consumed seeps incontinently out of the figures as their shadows.’
Provenance: Private collection, Southern Germany
Literature:
1. Tacou, A. (2008). Francis Bacon: Estampes – Collection Alexandre Tacou. Paris: Bervillé Éditions.
Reference: Tacou 24.
2. Sabatier, B. (2012). Francis Bacon: Oeuvre Graphique – The Graphic Work: Catalogue Raisonné. Paris: JSC Modern Art Gallery.
Reference: Sabatier 23
Condition: Excellent condition. The first sheet with a minor bump to the upper right corner.
