Framing Bacon
Reception and Representation from Little Magazine to TV Screen, 1945–1966
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21158772 |
|---|---|
| Authors | D Mellor (0000-0001-5007-5906, corresponding author), David Alan Mellor |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 227-234 |
| Publication date | 2009-12-09 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Visual Culture in Britain (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1471-4787 • E-ISSN: 1941-8361 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14714780903290521 |
| OpenAlex | W1969515080 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
With his participation in an exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1945, Francis Bacon's paintings acquired a certain critical velocity of exceptionalism. This article looks at some of the narratives that sustained his reception for the next couple of decades. These include the trope of Bacon as existentialist representative of a catastrophic moment in Western culture; the Gothic ambience that is constructed around him by writers such as Robert Melville; the contextual and interdisciplinary perspectives of Sam Hunter and Lawrence Alloway, which foregrounded film and photography; and the eloquent formalism of David Sylvester. The lack of purchase on Bacon to be found from leftist perspectives, specifically John Berger's, is also recounted, as well as key formative exhibitions of the period, which positioned the artist. Finally, the article glances at the mediatization of Bacon that begins at the close of the 1950s, and his transformation through the format of culture-celebrity TV
Art · Art history · Exhibition · Literature · Narrative · Painting · Sociology · Visual arts · Art, Politics, and Modernism · History · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2026 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |