Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho
Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho | |
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![]() Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street In Soho, 1967. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin | |
Year | 1967 |
Location | Neue Nationalgalerie |
Accession No. | B 897 ![]() |
[edit on Wikidata] |
Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho is a 1967 oil-on-canvas painting by the Irish-born English figurative artist Francis Bacon, housed in the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Described by art critic John Russell as one of Bacon's finest works,[1] it depicts Isabel Rawsthorne, the painter, designer and occasional model for artists such as André Derain, Alberto Giacometti and Picasso.
Bacon met her in the late 1940s through Erica Brausen, who was exhibiting both artists in her Hanover Gallery in London. He portrayed Rawsthorne many times, including three large scale canvases and three triptychs in the 1960s, as well as around 15 smaller portraits.[2] She was a great beauty with striking facial features, and was a formidable character. She fascinated Bacon and was perhaps the friend he respected most during the 1960s. According to his biographer Michael Peppiatt, "in her animal exuberance and the resolute sense of her individuality ... she had a magnetism and mobility of expression that captivated Bacon".[3] Although notably gay, in an interview soon after her death in January 1992, Bacon hinted that they had recently had an affair.[2][4]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6f/Isabel_Rawsthorne_Deakin.jpg/220px-Isabel_Rawsthorne_Deakin.jpg)
Bacon's 1960s paintings are characterised by closely modelled heads. By this time he was highly social, and liked to spend long nights with associates such as Lucian Freud (they later fell out, for unexplained reasons), Peter O'Toole, George Melly, Muriel Belcher, John Deakin and Henrietta Moraes. Belcher was a close friend, and the proprietor of the highly selective Colony Room in Dean Street, Soho.
The portrait is unusual for Bacon given that it has an outdoor setting while he was preoccupied throughout his career depicting figures in rooms. After the 1950s, and apart from his bullfight series, it is one of the few to place the subject outdoors.[5] In addition it is one of his few in which the subject seems aware and engaged with its surroundings. The other portraits that show a similarly outwards looking figure are also of Rawsthorne.[6]
References
- ^ Russell 1971, p. 125.
- ^ a b Zweite 2006, p. 148.
- ^ Peppiatt 1996, pp. 204–205.
- ^ His only earlier sexual encounter with a woman was with a prostitute. Bacon claims it was unsuccessful.
- ^ Sylvester 2000, p. 151.
- ^ Farr, Peppiatt & Yard 1999, p. 55.
Sources
- Farr, Dennis; Peppiatt, Michael; Yard, Sally (1999). Francis Bacon: A Retrospective. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8109-2925-8.
- Peppiatt, Michael (1996). Anatomy of an Enigma. London: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-3520-9.
- Russell, John (1971). Francis Bacon (World of Art). New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-500-20169-5.
- Sylvester, David (2000). Looking back at Francis Bacon. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500019940.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Zweite, Armin (ed). (2006). The Violence of the Real. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-09335-0.
- v
- t
- e
- Crucifixion (1933)
- Wound for a Crucifixion (1933)
- Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950)
- Figure in a Landscape (1945)
- Painting 1946 (1946)
- Study for Crouching Nude (1952)
- Two Figures (1953)
- Three Studies from the Human Head (1953)
- Study for Portrait II (After the Life Mask of William Blake) (1955)
- Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe (1968)
- Study for a Bullfight, Number 2 (1969)
- Three Studies of the Male Back (1970)
- Blood on the Floor (painting) (1986)
- Study after Velázquez (1950)
- Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953)
- Figure with Meat (1954)
- Untitled (Pope) (c. 1954)
- Study from Innocent X (1962)
- Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd version 1971 (1971)
- Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944)
- Three Studies for a Crucifixion (1962)
- Three Figures in a Room (1964)
- Crucifixion (1965)
- Triptych Inspired by T.S. Eliot's Poem "Sweeney Agonistes" (1967)
- Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants (1968)
- Triptych, 1976 (1976)
- Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus (1981)
- Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988)
- Triptych–August 1972 (1972)
- Triptych, May–June 1973 (1973)
- Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer (1964)
- Portrait of George Dyer Talking (1966)
- Three Studies for George Dyer (1967)
- Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967)
- Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969)
- Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1976 (1976)
- Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes (1963)
- Three Studies for a Portrait of Muriel Belcher (1966)
- Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho (1967)
- Three Studies for Self Portrait (1973)
- Self-portrait (1973)
- Three Studies for Self-Portrait (1979)
- Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86 (1985–86)
- Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981 book)
- Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998 film)