SEATED FIGURE, 1983

  • Seated Figure 1983 byt Francis Bacon
    Seated Figure 1981, 1983
    Intaglio, edition of 99, H 72 x W 54cm 
    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon 
    Seated Figure (1983) is a powerful example of Francis Bacon’s late style, capturing the tension between isolation and introspection that defined much of his mature work. The print depicts a lone, distorted figure set within one of Bacon’s signature confined interiors, rendered in a restrained palette that heightens its psychological impact. The figure sits motionless, yet there is a tension in the posture, almost uneasy, as if caught between holding itself together and falling apart. 
     
    By this stage in his career, Bacon had refined his technique to achieve maximum emotional intensity with minimal means. In Seated Figure, the violence of his earlier works gives way to quiet unease, where distortion becomes a language of vulnerability rather than shock. The sparse composition and measured brushwork reflect Bacon’s growing interest in solitude, mortality, and the endurance of the human form. It is a haunting meditation on existence, executed with the precision and control of an artist at the height of his powers.
     
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  • It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

    - Francis Bacon
    His late paintings and prints often feature solitary figures in bare, geometric rooms. The emptiness of these spaces mirrors the internal silence of grief and ageing. Gone were the frenzied, screaming forms of the 1950s; in their place came still, contemplative figures, alone, confined, and surrounded by voids of colour. This sense of separation became central to Bacon’s mature style.
    For Bacon, isolation wasn’t just loneliness; it was a truth about human existence. He once said that “we are born alone and we die alone,” and his late works seem to accept that fact with quiet clarity. The figures sit in their cages, not as victims, but as witnesses to the passage of time, stripped of distraction, facing only themselves.