NEW YORK, NY.- In early November 2018, George Condo visited Bacon’s Women, at Ordovas, 9 East 77th Street, the first exhibition in the United States to focus on Francis Bacon’s female subjects. Following his visit, Condo was so taken by Bacon’s painting of Isabel Rawsthorne, that he made his own portrait of her. For the final week of the exhibition, Bacon’s painting of Isabel will be replaced by Condo’s own version.

Set designer and artist Isabel Rawsthorne (1912-1992) inspired many of the twentieth century’s greatest painters and sculptors and was a great friend to Bacon. Rawsthorne left home as soon as she could to study art and stage design, she was accepted into the Royal Academy with a scholarship and there she began meeting young artists and modeled to make ends meet. When she moved to Paris in 1934, alongside her studies she sat for André Derain and Alberto Giacometti and according to her diary, Picasso made a number of portraits from memory, after seeing her from afar. Despite his homosexuality, Bacon claimed he tried to make love to this confident, beautiful woman.

Although historically the emphasis has been on the men in Bacon’s life, the artist was equally engaged with women, many of whom he had long-lasting relationships with, and he painted more female than male nudes. Through a selection of portraits and photographs of his closest female companions, Bacon’s Women explores the artist’s relationship with the opposite sex and dives into this under-researched area of one of the twentieth century’s greatest painters.

The paintings are accompanied by photographs taken by John Deakin, which Bacon commissioned and used as the starting point for many portraits. While Bacon’s lovers came in and out of his life, there were constant female figures. Among them were his mother, nanny, sister and Valerie Beston, who looked after him at Marlborough Gallery, as well as three women that he loved to paint: Muriel Belcher, Henrietta Moraes and Isabel Rawsthorne, who together are the subjects of forty-six paintings.
Bacon’s Women will be on display through January 11, 2019.