A portrait of the artist by Francis Bacon

Richard Hamilton

1970–71 · Collotype and screenprint · Modern and Contemporary Art

In 1969, at the end of a characteristically wine-soaked lunch at Robert Carrier’s London restaurant with the artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992), Hamilton asked Bacon to photograph him against the drapes of the dining room. The first exposure was blurry from Bacon’s tipsy handling of the Polaroid, but Hamilton found the image to have an affinity with Bacon’s distinctive style of painting. Working with oil on collotype copies of that portrait, Hamilton produced seven studies from which Bacon was to select his favorite. He chose the seventh study in which Hamilton had covered the blurred curtains with a particularly Bacon-esque violet.

Artist

Richard Hamilton

Date

1970–71

Medium

Collotype and screenprint

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Purchase, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 2000