Private Viewing of Francis Bacon: Man and Beast

07 Mar 2022

We started the month with a jolt. On March 1, a rainy Tuesday morning in London, Cultivist members gathered at the Royal Academy before the institution's doors opened to the public.

There to visit the Francis Bacon exhibition Man and Beast, – a show spanning 50 years of the Irish-born artist's visceral work – we knew that we could expect a powerful experience. What we viewed was equal parts magnificent and disturbing.

A Cultivist member at our before-hours Francis Bacon exhibition tour on March 1.

At the Royal Academy: Bacon's Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, 1981.

One of Francis Bacon's six Head portraits looms large.

Francis Bacon was a horse-breeder’s son who went on to become one of the most important painters of the 20th century. His painting evokes the devastating experiences he absorbed as a young man: from the sexual adventures he embarked on as an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal, in Paris and Berlin, to the horror of a war-torn Europe. In this retrospective, the faceless forms, contorted mouths and crimson images of carnage collide with Bacon’s unerring fascination with animals, stirred by trips to South Africa.

Are his figures human or beastly? However you interpret Bacon's primal paintings, it's clear that he felt he could get closer to grasping the true nature of humankind by depicting this hybrid and ambiguous subject matter.

Experiencing art up close is a core part of our Cultivist offering. For access to our exclusive museum tours, inquire about a Cultivist membership today.

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast closes April 17.