July 17, 2014 – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition: ‘Francis Bacon & Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty’ at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto

Exhibition dates: 5th April – 20th July 2014

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Second Version of Triptych 1944
1988
Oil and alkyds on canvas
Each panel 198 x 147.5cm (each panel)
Tate Modern, London
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Like the my earlier posting on the exhibition ‘Caravaggio – Bacon’ at Gallery Borghese, Rome, what an inspired curatorial decision this is. I would have never have thought to have brought Bacon and Moore together, but the synergy between the two artists work is undeniable.

Personally, I don’t think that Moore is as immobile and measurable as Radoslaw Kudlinski states in the quotation below: while rooted in anthropological concerns his anthropomorphic “nightmares” have a heft and gravitas that move you, not physically, but in the pit of your stomach. Look at the open mouth of Reclining Figure (1951, below) and tell me you are not drawn down into the bowls of the soul through the pointed tit of mother earth. Tactile, yes. Immobile and measurable, NO!

Moore moves you from within. His roots are from an ancient and emotional landscape, one of decay, time and change. His works are like embryonic sacs, pushing out at you from different points. The holes in his work are like looking into a black hole. The spaces he creates with his sculptures DENY a perfect formal economy, for they are really awkward images that impinge on a space. Never stationary, his sculptures move you from within in the most powerful way. A perfect counterbalance to the external, cinematic rambunctiousness of Bacon.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the Art Gallery of Ontario for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Second Version of Triptych 1944 (detail)
1988
Oil and alkyds on canvas
Each panel 198 x 147.5cm (each panel)
Tate Modern, London
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

“While Moore’s figures are sustaining themselves entirely from within, Bacon’s are disengaged fugitives from history. Bacon is already “after” when Moore is still “before.”

And while Moore’s nightmares are still rooted in anthropological concerns – corporeal and measurable – Bacon’s subject is a phantom without a name, without a past, because a collectivised subject is only and always an abstract fragment of a person.

But we need Moore’s confrontation with Bacon. Moore is a guardian of our sanity. His forms are stationary – despite the refined movement of all their structural lines, and their impeccable pronunciation of architectural tempo, as well as their perfect formal economy, they are going nowhere.

And because of Moore’s immobility, tactility and measurability, I welcome his presence with relief. He defends us from Bacon’s radical, cinematic mobility, forever escaping our grasp.

Bacon’s state of convulsive stasis is an illusion, because looking at his canvas you have an impression that between the two or three takes, there are more frames, as in a movie, trapped in the same space. There is also a sense that this trapping of multiplicity is not a conscious choice, but the consequence of there being nowhere else to go.

Bacon is the scandal of the flesh, the existential strip-tease – even a post-flesh, post-body concept of a person. He is a fugitive, and his natural state is motion, appearance and disappearance. He belongs to non-materiality, to cyberspace – and this is his paradox, because together with the sensuality of his pictorial matter, the materiality of subject is gone. That’s why Bacon is so relevant today.”

Radoslaw Kudlinski. “Serious Scary: Francis Bacon and Henry Moore in Toronto,” on the Canadian Art website, May 7, 2014 [Online] Cited 05/07/2014. No longer available online

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Lying Figure in a Mirror
1971
Oil on canvas
198.5 x 147.5cm
Museo de Bellas Artes Bilbao
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Untitled (Kneeling Figure)
1982
Oil on canvas
212 x 161cm
The Estate of Francis Bacon
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Study for Portrait on Folding Bed
1963
Oil on canvas
198.1 x 147.3cm
Tate Britain, London
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Three Figures and a Portrait, 1975
1975
Oil and acrylic on canvas
198.1 x 147.3cm
Tate Britain, London
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Two Figures in a Room
1959
Oil on canvas
198 x 140.5cm
Robert & Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, UK
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Bill Brandt (German-British, 1904-1983)
Francis Bacon
Nd
Gelatin silver print
20.9 x 18.7cm
© The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Study for Portrait II (After the life mask of William Blake)
1955
Oil on canvas
61 x 51cm
Tate Modern, London © Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne
1966
Oil on canvas
81 x 69cm
Tate Modern, London
© Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992)
Study for Portrait VI
1953
Oil on canvas
152 x 117cm
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
The Miscellaneous Works of Art Purchase Fund © Estate of Francis Bacon / SODRAC (2013)

The tortured British painter Francis Bacon, whose triptych recently set a new record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, makes his Canadian debut this spring at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) alongside rarely-seen works by the British sculptor Henry Moore in the exhibition Francis Bacon & Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty. Featuring more than 130 artworks, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and archival materials, the exhibition explores the two artists’ shared fascination with the human form in relation to the violence of the Second World War and other key events of the 20th century.

Although they were neither friends nor collaborators, Bacon (b. 1909) and Moore (b. 1898) were contemporaries who shared an obsession with expressing themes of violence, trauma and conflict, both social and personal. Drawing on the artists’ personal experiences during the London Blitz and other conflicts, the exhibition examines how confinement and angst fostered their extraordinary creativity and unique visions. Bacon, whose dark depictions of human torment have inspired several characters in popular culture, including the appearance of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, was a sado-masochist who sought to process the trials of humanity through his canvases. Moore, a British war artist, was one of the most renowned sculptors of his time. His works evoke endurance and stability, but when considered in light of his wartime experience, they read as an effort to rebuild and redeem the fragile human psyche and body.

Curated for the AGO by Dan Adler, associate professor of art history at York University, Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty is the first Canadian exhibition of Bacon’s work and includes rarely seen Moore pieces, from both the AGO collection and elsewhere. Moore’s works are a cornerstone of the AGO collection, and pairing them with those by Francis Bacon sets them in a new light. The exhibition also presents more than 30 archival photographs by acclaimed German-born British photographer Bill Brandt. Loans for the exhibition have also been secured from several institutions, including MoMA, Tate Britain and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Press release from the AGO website

Bill Brandt (German-British, 1904-1983)
Henry Moore in his Studio at Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
1940
Gelatin silver print
22.8 x 19.6cm
© The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich

Henry Moore (English, 1898-1986)
Reclining Figure
1951
Plaster cast
Length: 228.5cm
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Courtesy Craig Boyko, AGO
© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS / SODRAC (2013)

Henry Moore (English, 1898-1986)
Maquette for Strapwork Head
1950
Bronze edition of 9
10cm high (excluding base)
The Henry Moore Foundation
© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS / SODRAC (2013)

Henry Moore (English, 1898-1986)
Sleeping Positions
1940-41
Mixed media on wove paper
20.4 x 16.5cm
The Henry Moore Foundation
© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS / SODRAC (2013)

Art Gallery of Ontario
Musée des beaux-arts de l’Ontario
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto Ontario Canada M5T 1G4

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10.30am – 5.30pm
Closed Mondays

Art Gallery of Ontario website

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