LONDON.- The Estate of Francis Bacon has generously placed an important painting by the artist on loan to
The Courtauld Gallery. Untitled (Crouching Figures), c.1952, went on display from yesterday and will initially be presented alongside Honoré Daumiers Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, c.1870, in recognition of Bacons admiration for Daumiers masterpiece.
When James Thrall Soby, curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, was researching his book on Francis Bacon he contacted Harry Fischer, director of Marlborough Fine Art, the artists dealer. Fischer was able to give him some fresh insight into Bacons artistic taste and favourite works, noting: He considers Daumiers Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and El Grecos View of Toledo to be amongst the greatest paintings in the world.... Bacon knew Daumiers masterpiece from his visits to The Courtauld Gallery, where it forms part of the Gallerys celebrated collection of 19th century French paintings.
Untitled (Crouching Figures) is one of Bacons most important works from the early 1950s, a period when he was emerging as the leading British painter of his generation. It is one of a group of works in which nude figures are paired in sexually charged homoerotic compositions. In the post-war world of the 1950s, Bacons revelation through his paintings of the potentially destructive potential of human desire resonated particularly strongly.
Miguel de Cervantess great 17th century novel tells the story of the farcical Don Quixote who sets out on a series of illusory chivalrous quests, mounted on his emaciated horse Rocinante and accompanied by the witness squire Sancho Panza. Bacon scholar Martin Harrison, who first recognised the importance of Fischers correspondence with Soby, has written of Daumiers Don Quixote: To gaze at this great painting is comparable to experiencing a slightly scaled-down Bacon of the 1950s, pointing out how the subdued palette and loose brushwork of Daumiers painting is echoed in Bacons work. Bacon may have also have felt an affinity for Daumiers bleak representation of the tragicomic figures from Cervantess novel.