Triptych, May–June 1973
1973 painting by Francis Bacon / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Triptych, May–June 1973 is a triptych completed in 1973 by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992). The oil-on-canvas was painted in memory of Bacon's lover George Dyer, who committed suicide on the eve of the artist's retrospective at Paris's Grand Palais on 24 October 1971. The triptych is a portrait of the moments before Dyer's death from an overdose of pills in their hotel room.[1] Bacon was haunted and preoccupied by Dyer's loss for the remaining years of his life[2] and painted many works based on both the actual suicide and the events of its aftermath. He admitted to friends that he never fully recovered, describing the 1973 triptych as an exorcism of his feelings of loss and guilt.[3]
The work is stylistically more static and monumental than Bacon's earlier triptychs of Greek figures and friends' heads. It has been described as one of his "supreme achievements" and is generally viewed as his most intense and tragic canvas.[3] Of the three Black Triptychs Bacon painted when confronting Dyer's death, Triptych, May–June 1973 is generally regarded as the most accomplished.[4] In 2006, The Daily Telegraph's art critic Sarah Crompton wrote that "emotion seeps into each panel of this giant canvas ... the sheer power and control of Bacon's brushwork take the breath away".[5] Triptych, May–June 1973 was purchased at auction in 1989 by Esther Grether for $6.3 million, then a record for a Bacon painting.[6][7]