Francis Bacon

Penguin are using my picture of Francis Bacon for the jacket of their publication Francis Bacon by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan which will soon be on sale.

I took the picture in the mid 1970s in London. Bacon arrived at my studio with the mutual friend who had made the sitting possible, sat down in front of the camera, and after a few words of greeting, fell asleep.

We left him undisturbed for a few while and when he woke up he made us laugh with his usual liveliness and wit.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon, the English painter, would be one hundred years old this year. I am posting this photograph a little late in the day, as his exhibition has already been seen in Madrid and London, but it has turned up at the Metropolitan Museum here in New York this week.

I took the picture in the late seventies. When he arrived at the studio, he sat down in front of the camera and fell asleep. He did not mind at all being woken up and stayed awake while I took the picture. He had an especially pleasant voice and gentle manner.