STUDY OF A SELF PORTRAIT, 1973

  • Buy or sell Francis Bacon, Study of a Self Portrait, 1973, signed lithograph © The Estate of Francis Bacon.
    Study of a Self Portrait, 1973.
    Lithograph, 102 × 73 cm, edition of 180, signed by the artist. 
    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon
    Study of a Self-Portrait (1973) is a lithograph measuring 102 × 73 cm, produced in an edition of 180 and signed by the artist. The composition places Bacon seated at the centre of a sparse interior, a solitary figure surrounded by a bare room marked only by a table and a light switch.
     
    Rendered in subdued, cool tones, the scene carries a sense of distance and introspection, the artist’s form appearing to recede into the background. Typical of Bacon’s self-portraits from this period, the work captures both his physical presence and his growing preoccupation with isolation and the passage of time.
     
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  • If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.

     

    - Bacon, Francis

    During the 1970s, Bacon repeatedly returned to self-portraiture, producing some of his most introspective and revealing images. With many of his close friends and lovers gone, he described having “no one else left to paint.” These works capture not only his likeness but his state of being, studies of the self as both subject and witness. To own one of these portraits is to hold a moment of Bacon himself: an image that reflects the artist’s enduring search for identity, truth, and a fleeting sense of permanence within his ever-shifting world.