Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Francis Bacon at the Hugh Lane Gallery

The main attraction at the Hugh Lane Gallery is the Francis Bacon Studio - an area of the museum where they have completely reconstructed Bacon's South Kensington Studio, piece by piece, brush by brush, sock by sock! An archeological team was involved in the painstaking mapping, tracking and labelling of every item in the room, including the walls - apparently a total of 7000 pieces. And it wasn't a tidy room, let me tell you (in striking contrast to the rest of his lodging at the same address). You can't really see it that well, as there are only 5 viewing points - one at the door, left ajar, 2 windows and 2 pin-hole magnifiers that show the paint on the wall across the way. But there are a few screens around the area with audio-visual information about the various items found in the room, including 100 slashed canvases!

There is an exhibition on Francis Bacon currently running in parallel (until the 7th of March), with photographs, paintings and slashed canvases. I'm not sure where the permanent collection ended and where the temporary exhibition started, but I enjoyed it all.

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