Top-lot auction Sotheby's contemporary art on June 29 in London will be a masterpiece by Francis Bacon's "Crouching Nude". Never before has auctioned the work is estimated at 7-9 million pounds

Francis Bacon
Crouching Nude. 1961
Oil on canvas. 198 x 145
Sotheby's. 29.06.2011
Estimate: 7-9 million pounds
Source: Press Release Sotheby's

evening sale of Contemporary Art Sotheby's on June 29 in London, headed by never-before exhibited to auction a masterpiece of the famous British artist Francis Bacon "Crouching Nude" (estimate 7-9 million pounds /10-15 million dollars). This is one of the most large-format paintings of Bacon (198 x 145). His appearance on the market was preceded by a series of price records Sotheby's in the works of the masters, and the figure includes $ 23 million: much paid for his "Three Etudes for a portrait Lusiena Freud" at Sotheby's auction in February this year, and this sum three times greater than the initial forecast. Sotheby's owns 4 out of 5 auction records Bacon, including the absolute record price for a work of modern art, staged "triptych" of the artist (86,2 million dollars) at auction at Sotheby's in New York in May 2008.

«Crouching Nude" will be exhibited in London on 18-22 and June 25-29.

Deputy Head of Sotheby's Europe and leading expert of the International Department of Contemporary Art Oliver Barker said: "Like Picasso, Bacon - the biggest artist of the postwar period, and his" Crouching Nude "in 1961 - the product of an exceptional level, marking one of the turning points in the career of an artist, this work is fully exposes the usually hidden from the eyes of his creative laboratory. We are confident that "Crouching Nude" will receive the highest praise for the most discerning collectors around the world ».

« Crouching Nude, one of the strongest recent works by the artist, was included in his traveling retrospective an exhibition of 90 paintings, opened at the Tate Gallery in May 1962, this show has confirmed the reputation of Bacon as the leading British contemporary artist.

In mature period of creativity Bacon often used as objects of his work friends and friends, a circle which in 1960 consisted of Peter Lacy, George Dyer, Lucien Freud, Isabelle Raustorn, Henrietta Moraes and Muriel Belcher. Showing a voracious, sometimes bordering on obsession with interest to the individuals and the figures close to him, the artist has never painted them from nature, preferring to work from photographs and memory. Nude picture on his strongly deformed and complexly interwoven forms of existentialist interpretation of the artist is more like some wild exotic beings from other worlds than human. It seemed superimposed three photos girlfriends Bacon - Belcher, Raustorn and Moraes. Belcher opened in 1948 on Dean Street in Soho, his saloon and gave generous credit to Bacon, in gratitude to the artist attracted to the hostess of new customers; Moraes and Raustorn were just friends, and all three of them - those closest to him in women in 1960.

«Crouching Nude" was written in the midst of a passionate and stormy relationship with the artist's military pilot, Peter Lacy. Bacon met him about 1952, and their relationship lasted until the death of Lacey from alcoholism in 1962, as Bacon learned from a telegram received on the eve of the opening of a retrospective at the Tate. Thus, the pattern established in the stressful and painful period for the artist's life and work; feelings experienced by Bacon in that time, gave rise to a number of masterpieces of the 1960's.

Source : Press Release Sotheby's