MONACO.- The Grimaldi Forum, Monaco is presenting a major exhibition, Francis Bacon, Monaco and French Culture from 2 July to 4 September 2016. The exhibition, curated by Martin Harrison, editor of the forthcoming Francis Bacon Catalogue Raisonné (publication 30 June 2016), takes place with the support of The Estate of Francis Bacon in London, and the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation based in Monaco.

Francis Bacon’s cultural orientation was, to an extraordinary degree, towards France, and The Grimaldi Forum exhibition explores the artist’s work from this unique angle: the important influence of French art and culture on Bacon’s work, and his years in Monaco that had a crucial impact on his oeuvre. Major triptychs as well as famous and less well-known paintings are being displayed thematically and show direct and indirect relationships to France and Monaco. One of the features of this exhibition is to cross-reference major works of the masters who inspired the artist.

The exhibition brings together more than sixty paintings by Bacon himself alongside works by leading artists who inspired him, including Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Giacometti, Léger and Soutine. Major loans from public collections around the world include Head VI (1949) from the Arts Council England, the extraordinary Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven), and Pope I (1951, Aberdeen Art Gallery). There are also a number of works, many rarely if ever displayed, from private collections, including the triptych, Studies of the Human Body (1970), Turning Figure (1962), and Portrait of a Man Walking Down Steps (1972), Bacon’s most poignant tribute to George Dyer, painted shortly after his death.

The exhibition includes – for the first time – Francis Bacon’s first work, Watercolour (1929, Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation) and Bacon’s last painting, completed in 1991, the never-before-exhibited Study of a Bull.

Tate dedicated two retrospectives to the artist during his lifetime, in 1962 and 1985, but Francis Bacon regarded the retrospective at the Grand Palais in 1971 as the most significant of his career. Only Picasso had the similar honour of a retrospective held during his lifetime at the Grand Palais, in 1966.