TRIPTYCH AUGUST (RIGHT PANEL), 1972

  • Image of the right panel of Francis Bacons work Triptych August, 1972
    Triptych August 1972 (right panel),
    Lithograph, edition size of 180, H 66cm x W 48cm 
    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon
    Triptych August 1972 (Right Panel) presents one of Francis Bacon’s most haunting images of George Dyer, depicted seated alone in a chair. The composition is stripped of detail, the figure isolated within an empty, shadowed space that feels both physical and psychological. Dyer’s body appears still, yet his presence is fragile, caught between reality and death.
     
    This work belongs to the series of Black Triptychs, created in the aftermath of Dyer’s death. In contrast to the anguish of the central panel, this image carries a quiet resignation. Bacon’s restrained palette and minimal setting heighten the sense of absence, transforming a moment of stillness into a meditation on grief and memory. It stands as one of the artist’s most intimate portrayals of Dyer.
     
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  • "You can be in love with someone and not like them, and I think that’s what happened with George. But he brought a kind of chaos I needed.”

     

    – Francis Bacon

    Dyer’s death in 1971, by suicide in a Paris hotel on the eve of Bacon’s Grand Palais retrospective, devastated the artist. Bacon’s grief found form in the Black Triptychs, a series of paintings that immortalised Dyer’s image and transformed personal tragedy into artistic expression. Through Dyer, Bacon explored mortality, memory, and the emotional limits of the human condition. Even decades later, Dyer’s presence lingers in Bacon’s work, a lasting testament to the profound influence he had on both the man and the art.