HEAD III, 1949

  • Head III, 1949, Francis Bacon

    Head III, 1949

    Oil on canvas, 81 x 66cm

    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon, Image reproduced for educational purposes only

    Head III (1949) continues Francis Bacon’s powerful exploration of the human figure as seen in his early Head Series, painted between 1948 and 1952. In this work, the subject is enclosed within a shallow, box-like space that isolates and exposes it, a structure that would become a recurring motif throughout Bacon’s career. The head, blurred and distorted, appears to hover in a void, suspended between material presence and psychological dissolution.
     
    Rendered in muted greys, Head III is deeply unsettling. The faint suggestion of clerical robes and the hint of a raised mouth recall Bacon’s developing obsession with the image of the Pope, a theme he would soon immortalise in his Screaming Popes series. The painting’s atmosphere is claustrophobic, the figure caught in a space that feels more psychological than physical.

  • “I’m not trying to express reality. I’m trying to create a reality of my own.”

     

    - Francis Bacon 

    The Head Series, 1948 to 1952, marks a pivotal moment in Francis Bacon’s development, bridging the raw intensity of his early works with the precision and psychological focus of his later paintings. Across these seven known canvases, Bacon abandoned narrative and began to concentrate almost entirely on the human head, not as a portrait in the traditional sense but as a site of transformation, emotion and vulnerability. Each head is set within a shallow, cage-like space that isolates it from the world, turning the act of looking into an act of confrontation.