* Preface 190944 * Origins and Upbringing, 190926 * Educated Abroad: Berlin and Paris, 192628 * A Brief Apprenticeship, 192833 * Insufficiently Surreal, 193339 * A Vision Without Veils, 193944 194463 * Father Figures and Crucifixions, 194446 * Towards Other Shores, 194650 * Hounded by Furies, 195054 * Truth Told by a Lie, 195458 * Recognition at Home: The Tate Retrospective, 195863 196392 * A Brilliant Fool Like Me, 196369 * All the Honours of Paris, 196972 * Elegy for the Dead, 197275 * My Exhilarated Despair, 197581 * Alone in the Studio, 198184 * The Greatest Living Painter, 198492Postscript
Michael Peppiatt has served as literary editor for Le Monde and arts correspondent for The New York Times and the Financial Times. He has written extensively on modern and contemporary art and has been a curator for several exhibitions. In 1985 he became editor and publisher of Art International. He is married to the art historian Jill Lloyd and divides his time between Paris and London.
Phenomenal drinking habits, chronic sleep deprivation, and a dangerous taste for the lowlife didn't seem to dampen Bacon's productivity. Perhaps they even fueled it. During his turbulent lifetime (1909-1992), Bacon was called variously "the most important and original artist of postwar Europe" and "the greatest painter of flesh since Renoir." His images of screaming mouths, writhing bodies and elongated, headless necks were intended to be an assault on the viewer's nervous system; they conveyed, to use Art International editor Peppiatt's characteristically deft phrase, "the snarl of rage and the bellow of fear" that lurk in every human being. A challenge to biographers, Bacon manipulated his public persona and was tight-lipped about his genteel Irish origins. Peppiatt, however, had the advantage of a 30-year friendship with the artist in writing this full-scale, psychological biography. Here he explores the contradictions of Bacon's psyche: guilt about being homosexual versus a desire to flout convention; atheism mixed with an obsession with religious imagery; egotism tempered by near-saintly generosity. The flamboyantly promiscuous and eccentric Bacon lives in Peppiatt's descriptions ("he walked with a springily weaving step, as if the ground rolled beneath his feet like the deck of a ship at sea"). Peppiatt doesn't ignore Bacon's dark side, but overall, this anatomy lesson is not an autopsy, but the unveiling of a sympathetic portrait. Illustrations. (June) FYI: In April, Thames & Hudson will publish Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits which included 223 color illustrations, an introduction by Milan Kundera and an essay by France Borel ($60 216p ISBN 0-500-09266-4)
These two books enrich the already substantial Bacon bibliography with different but equally successful approaches. While Peppiatt's biography fleshes out, with lucidity and scholarship, biographical and contextual details heretofore unexplored, Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits is a lavishly produced treat with a sharp focus, carefully chosen reproductions, and inspired writing. Peppiatt (editor of Art International) brings both a critical and a personal perspective to his subject, as he was a close friend of the artist. Bacon's haunting images almost beg for psychological exploration; likewise, one is tempted to search for elements of the artist's hidden, exceptional life (and lifestyle) in his work. The new information Peppiatt provides about Bacon's early years enlarges the already complex portrait of the artist, and the interplay of persona and paintings adds up to a compelling and readable study. Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits is composed of Bacon's representations of people‘ranging from Lucian Freud to Mick Jagger‘with many details and photographs that unveil the remarkable likenesses retained in studies that on the surface are gross distortions. Kundera's essay explores links with Picasso and Beckett and is wonderfully perceptive, while Belgian art historian Borel's prose is provocative‘albeit a bit ponderous, possibly in part because of the translation. Both titles are highly recommended for 20th-century art collections, although the latter is more of a luxury.‘Heidi Martin Winston, NYPL
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