The cultural institute founded by Majid Boustany allows us a privileged insight into the work, life and creative process of one of the UK's most enigmatic post-war painters.
The record sale price of Three Studies of Lucian Freud at Christie's in 2013 made Francis Bacon the world's most expensive artist, his market value having climbed consistently since the 60s. To enable people to discover Bacon's world and to support various research and study projects, Majid Boustany has set up the one and only foundation dedicated to the painter, who lived in Monaco from 1946 to 1949. "Throughout his career he chronicled the human condition. His paintings disturb and irritate, not least because they raise numerous burning questions," says the collector, an avid fan of the artist's work for more than 20 years.
Concentrated reality
Francis Bacon began his career as an interior decorator in London in 1929. In the low-lit Foundation building, the light fittings, mirrors and carpets are a discreet reminder of that period. The visit begins with a Pope, inspired by Velázquez's legendary Portrait of Pope Innocent X and a subject that haunted Bacon for many years. Back in the 18th century the Spanish master had already ruffled feathers with his portrait's stern features, but Bacon went much further with his screaming distorted faces. "It was in Monaco that this notorious atheist, who was obsessed by religious imagery, painted his first Pope," Boustany explains. Here we can see prints and photographs, postcards, a study on canvas, items found in his studios and handwritten letters, not to mention a reconstruction of the painter's library in which Michelangelo's idealised bodies rub shoulders with Chaïm Soutine's animal carcasses. Bacon was marked by the two world wars and suffered a series of personal tragedies. In 1971, as the Grand Palais inaugurated a living retrospective on him (a privilege only Picasso had previously enjoyed), his lover George Dyer committed suicide. Bacon paid tribute to him in a triptych: on the left and right, his lover "falling apart", in the middle, the sex act linking love and violence.
Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation
21 boulevard d'Italie, Monaco
Tél. +377 93 30 30 33
www.mbartfoundation.com
Visites mardi et jeudi sur rendez-vous
By Tanja Stojanov
Côteweb 2021, création de site Internet sur Nice