"Francis Bacon : Anatomy of an Enigma" is an illuminating insight into the odd life of an artist who took great pains to prevent undue public prying while alive. Bacon felt that unnecessary publicity on his own peculiar choice of lifestyle would strip his paintings of the mystique they needed to work so effectively on the most visceral levels of the viewer's nervous system.
Michael Peppiatt takes us beyond the racks of carcasses and the pained, unsettled figures in claustrophobic rooms to glimpse a painter who was disarmingly immersed in all the pleasures that life can bestow. From his financial generosity and love of fine wines and good fellowship, to the celebrated sexual experimentation and excess of his youth, Peppiatt's portrait of the artist is at once astonishing and humorous in its revelations and salacious gossip. We learn the truth behind Bacon's ill fated relationship with the gigolo-spiv George Dyer, who features so prominently in the artists 60's portraits. We read about Bacon's unlikely association with Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the gangster celebrities of swinging Sixties London, as well as a whole host of other unsavoury characters, the flotsam of a twilight 'interzone' where Bacon lurked and prowled as if to reinforce his determinedly cruel, sadistic view of the world.
Other prominent Baconian characters are also sketched with humour and compassion, including Muriel Belcher, acid-tongued proprietor of the Colony Room Club, Isabella Rawsthorne, Henrietta Moraes, George Deakin and Lucien Freud. Particularly hilarious is Henrietta Moraes' account of the origin of her famous nude photographs, many of which formed the basis for Bacon's most memorable female nudes. Unsurprising for a Baconian character, the photographer - George Deakin - having persuaded Henrietta to pose with her legs a little further apart than necessary for the particular needs of art, was caught attempting to sell her nude images to sailors in 1950s Soho. This and other splendidly sleazy stories transform what would otherwise be a bleak or pretentious subject matter into a tour de force of black humour that Samuel Beckett would be proud of.
This biography is the document which avid Baconians have long been waiting for, the perfect companion to David Sylvestor's record of Bacon's conversation and poet Michel Leiris' various essays on the Bacon world view. It will be an essential text for all those who, like Bacon himself, struggle to achieve a totally honest and unvarnished opinion of human life in all its squalor, depravity and cruelty whilst still finding the motivation not to slit one's own throat. Only recommended for those, like 'the old queen' himself, with a particularly warped view of existence.
