FIGURE WRITING REFLECTED IN A MIRROR, 1977

  • Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror (1977) is a colour lithograph on Arches paper, signed by Francis Bacon in felt-tip...
    Figure writing reflected in a Mirror, 1977
    Lithograph in colours, on Arches paper, signed in felt tip pen, edition size 180. 
    85cm x 63.5cm
    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon
    Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror (1977) is a colour lithograph on Arches paper, signed by Francis Bacon in felt-tip pen and produced in an edition of 180. The composition shows a solitary figure seated at a table, their body twisted as they lean toward a mirror that reflects the act of writing. The space is sparse and ambiguous, with broad areas of pale ochre and grey framing the figure in an atmosphere of quiet tension.
     
    The mirrored reflection creates a sense of doubling and dislocation typical of Bacon’s work during the 1970s, when themes of self-observation and fragmentation became increasingly central. Though less overtly violent than his earlier imagery, this work retains the psychological charge that defines his art, a moment suspended between thought and distortion, presence and absence.
     
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  • It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

     

    - Francis Bacon

    Throughout his career, Bacon was drawn to the idea of doubling - the split between how a person appears and what lies beneath. Mirrors, shadows, and repeated figures recur across his work, serving as devices to fracture identity and explore the instability of perception. In Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror, this motif becomes almost meditative: the act of writing, reflected and distorted, turns inward, as if the figure is both author and subject of their own undoing. Bacon’s persistent use of reflection reveals his fascination with the limits of self-recognition, and his belief that truth in portraiture could only emerge through distortion rather than likeness.