HEAD I, 1948

  • Head I, 1948
    Head I, 1948
    Oil and tempera on hardboard
     40 ½ x 29 ½ in. (103 x 75 cm)
    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon, image reproduced for educational purposes only
    Head I (1948) marks the beginning of Francis Bacon’s celebrated Head series, a group of works that cemented his reputation as one of the leading figures in post-war British art. Painted in oil and tempera on hardboard, the work shows a distorted, ghostly face emerging from the darkness, its features blurred and half-lost within a confined space. The mouth, open in a silent cry, introduces one of Bacon’s most recognisable motifs , the image of the scream as a symbol of human tension and fear.
     
    Bacon was fascinated by medical and photographic imagery, particularly of mouths in states of tension or pain, and here that influence is unmistakable. The mouth seems caught between scream and silence, the teeth bared not in speech but in an involuntary reflex, a flash of human vulnerability. The distortion gives the face a sense of movement, as though collapsing under the pressure of emotion. In this detail, Bacon captures something deeply physical and unsettling: the body’s instinctive response to fear, violence or despair, rendered with unnerving precision.

  • “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”

     

    - Francis Bacon

    The rough texture of the hardboard surface, combined with Bacon’s layered brushwork, gives the painting a raw physicality that mirrors the unease of its subject. Created shortly after the devastation of the Second World War, Head I reflects the artist’s search for a new kind of portraiture, one that captures not appearance, but emotion and fragility. It stands as a powerful early example of Bacon’s lifelong focus on the vulnerability of the human condition.