0:00:02 > 0:00:09This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24Three figures, phallic necks.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28There's one with a sort of paw on what looks like
0:00:28 > 0:00:30a huge scrubbing brush,
0:00:30 > 0:00:31which is snarling.
0:00:31 > 0:00:38And they're baying their anger, their pain, their distrust of life.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44To the people who walked into the Lefevre Gallery that day...
0:00:45 > 0:00:48..that was a shock. I mean, they had never really seen anything like it.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56It was just after the war and people didn't want to be disturbed.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58They'd been deeply disturbed already.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03Something breaks in that painting,
0:01:03 > 0:01:04in English culture.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06It was as if art had become feral.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12Those things are all in the background, they all inform the work.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16But you make a mistake if you explain the paintings
0:01:16 > 0:01:20through the war. What Bacon did was something different.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28So many people of my generation,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32that's where they first saw an image by Francis Bacon.
0:01:32 > 0:01:34But nobody knew who Francis Bacon was.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42Just after the war, my mother had a house in South Kensington,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46and I was always watching what was going on outside.
0:01:46 > 0:01:52And I remember seeing somebody who was carrying a very large canvas.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54And I don't know why I felt it -
0:01:54 > 0:01:56"This guy has to be Francis Bacon."
0:01:58 > 0:02:01And he went into a house opposite my mother's house,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03I was totally fascinated by him.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05And we became friends.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08He was like no-one else in the world.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13He lived in a very grand studio.
0:02:13 > 0:02:18Everything was torn, everything was dirty, everything was wonderful.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24A lot of incredibly strong cocktails,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27so you got plastered pretty quick.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31And then Nanny would appear from time to time and say,
0:02:31 > 0:02:36"Would anybody like something to, you know, something to smoke?"
0:02:36 > 0:02:39And this didn't mean, you know, Player's cigarettes.
0:02:39 > 0:02:41MATCH STRIKES AND FLARES
0:02:41 > 0:02:43She was his childhood nanny.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45I think he adored her.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47She was like a mother to him.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51Of course, the whole story is... It's so comical, really.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54She slept on the kitchen table.
0:02:54 > 0:02:55She was totally blind.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00How on earth she cooked and how she knew what she was doing, I don't know.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03She organised the gambling parties that he gave,
0:03:03 > 0:03:06that's one of the ways he made money.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19After the war, the entire sort of bohemian London
0:03:19 > 0:03:22began to coalesce around the Gargoyle and then,
0:03:22 > 0:03:27of course, with the opening of The Colony Room by Muriel Belcher,
0:03:27 > 0:03:32that became the epicentre of the lives of most of the painters and,
0:03:32 > 0:03:34of course, Francis Bacon was part of that.
0:03:34 > 0:03:39I have no earthly idea when I first encountered Francis.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44I most remember him in The Colony,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47and Muriel said that I was the only person
0:03:47 > 0:03:50who was allowed in from the age of 12.
0:03:50 > 0:03:55Francis had an extraordinary capacity to take advantage of any situation
0:03:55 > 0:03:57in which he found himself
0:03:57 > 0:04:00and to turn it into something wonderful
0:04:00 > 0:04:01and magical.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03And so you were immediately...
0:04:04 > 0:04:07..enchanted by his presence.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13He was like a piece of electricity coming into the room.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17I mean, charisma poured out of him, you couldn't take your eyes off him,
0:04:17 > 0:04:21you know, he darted around like a bird, and these extraordinary eyes.
0:04:22 > 0:04:27Muriel offered him a £10 retainer, a week to bring in his friends,
0:04:27 > 0:04:29which he proceeded to do.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH:
0:05:04 > 0:05:06Yes, this was the age of existentialism,
0:05:06 > 0:05:11this is the age when everybody thought that this could be the last,
0:05:11 > 0:05:16their last moments, so they were living in a very edgy kind of atmosphere.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19We do with our life what we can and then we die.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22What else can you... What else is there?
0:05:22 > 0:05:25And if somebody is very aware of that, perhaps...
0:05:27 > 0:05:29Perhaps it comes out in their work.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32I think he saw life as a risk.
0:05:32 > 0:05:34It also amused him, I think,
0:05:34 > 0:05:39the idea that chance played such a big role in everything.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42And he certainly applied that to painting.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47If anything ever does work, in my case...
0:05:48 > 0:05:53..well, chance and what I call accident takes over.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59Certainly, in his painting, I mean, he would...
0:06:00 > 0:06:03..gamble everything on the next brush stroke.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06That's always, always going to be exciting, to see somebody in that
0:06:06 > 0:06:08situation and, you know,
0:06:08 > 0:06:12it's like watching somebody walking the tightrope to see if they succeed or fail.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15For instance, that painting in the Museum of Modern Art,
0:06:15 > 0:06:19I first tried to do a gorilla in a cornfield.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21Then I tried to do a bird alighting.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25And then, gradually, all the marks I'd made suggested this other image,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28which is a totally accidental image.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31I'd never thought of doing an image like that ever in my life.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35I can remember, you know, really studying for a long time,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38the umbrella in the sides of beef.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40And I remember thinking, how's he made that umbrella so terrifying?
0:06:40 > 0:06:42It's just such an everyday object.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45You know, you get guttural feelings from paintings
0:06:45 > 0:06:47and emotional paintings, and it's just paint.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51But it's like it doesn't feel like paint, it feels much more violent.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56You know, it taps into something in your unconscious, which is dark and,
0:06:56 > 0:06:57you know, exciting.
0:06:59 > 0:07:05When I met him, I could not equate just the general sort of drunken foolery
0:07:05 > 0:07:08that went on, which I found hugely entertaining,
0:07:08 > 0:07:11with these twisted horrors.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16This is the great central enigma about Bacon.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20Where did the darkness come from?
0:07:23 > 0:07:28You see, I was born in Ireland, and I was brought up a rabid Protestant...
0:07:31 > 0:07:33..with no beliefs, of course!
0:07:38 > 0:07:42Neither my mother or father were Irish
0:07:42 > 0:07:45but, nevertheless, I was brought up in Kildare.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48My father was a trainer of race horses.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53In the last interview that Bacon ever did,
0:07:53 > 0:07:55he spoke of his childhood and
0:07:55 > 0:08:00said it was like something cold and something hard, like a block of ice.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05And he attributed that to his shyness, which came from being asthmatic,
0:08:05 > 0:08:09that he could not interact in the world in the same way that ordinary boys could.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16Imagine growing up in a particularly horsey outdoorsy world,
0:08:16 > 0:08:20and imagine that you have fragile lungs that are pulverised by any sort of dust
0:08:20 > 0:08:23and you basically had to gasp your way through life.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27This had an enormous influence on Bacon.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32In the paintings, I believe it does come across.
0:08:32 > 0:08:38It's as though the air has been pumped out, has been sucked out of the space,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42and the figures are there, up against the glass,
0:08:42 > 0:08:44almost grasping for breath.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48He was growing up in Ireland. By the age of 12,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52what do you do when you've begun to have homosexual instincts?
0:08:54 > 0:08:57It was a deep-seated, deep-rooted problem with his father.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Bacon's father, Eddie, was a very difficult character.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08Francis Bacon disappointed him in a major way.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12It was a fairly traumatic childhood.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18His father got his stable boys to whip him,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21and I think that started one or two things off.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25He sometimes talked about it and he said, he said it to me privately...
0:09:26 > 0:09:27..that one of his...
0:09:30 > 0:09:35..difficult dynamics in his life was that he really rather hated his father
0:09:35 > 0:09:37but he found his father sexually attractive.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40Francis was a born masochist.
0:09:40 > 0:09:44It wasn't something that he took up later for kicks.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Francis was through and through a masochist.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55More interesting, of course, is that he then went into the stables and
0:09:55 > 0:09:59had sexual relations with the grooms.
0:10:03 > 0:10:08And I think the buggering in the barn was a sort of important aspect
0:10:08 > 0:10:09of his background.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14It was a very odd sort of situation.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16And the father couldn't deal with it.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19So he wanted him out of the house...
0:10:19 > 0:10:21and try and get him straightened out.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24He went to...
0:10:25 > 0:10:32..an older man whom his family, I think, thought would be a good companion for him
0:10:32 > 0:10:34but who turned out to be bisexual.
0:10:34 > 0:10:39TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH:
0:11:01 > 0:11:07He told it without any sense of hurt but, in fact, I think he'd been deeply,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10deeply wounded by this,
0:11:10 > 0:11:11by this rejection.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17Berlin was huge to him,
0:11:17 > 0:11:24as it became to a whole generation of homosexuals around his age.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29He liked the fascination, the freedom, the absolute lack of...
0:11:31 > 0:11:34..authority, in a way, which was hugely influential on him.
0:11:34 > 0:11:40Francis experienced Berlin whilst at its most famously debauched...
0:11:41 > 0:11:46..where there were these crazy bars and sadism was the flavour of the period.
0:11:48 > 0:11:55People have attempted to explain Francis Bacon as a revenge motif against his father.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01Once he left Berlin, where was his natural proclivity?
0:12:01 > 0:12:03It was France.
0:12:03 > 0:12:09He saw this as the Olympus of the art world, and Francis Bacon fell in
0:12:09 > 0:12:14love with Paris and Parisian art from his first trip there in 1928.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16And that was a constant throughout his entire life.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23I stayed for a short time in Paris and it was about that time,
0:12:23 > 0:12:28at Rosenberg's, I saw an exhibition of Picasso.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31And I think, at that moment, I thought, "Well, I will try and paint, too."
0:12:34 > 0:12:38Francis Bacon's first career is a bit obscured because what he did in
0:12:38 > 0:12:43Paris in his famous trip, once he left Berlin, has been a subject of much mystery.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49He did have some connections into the design world of Paris,
0:12:49 > 0:12:51we know for sure.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56By the time he came to London, a little-known fact that we've discovered,
0:12:56 > 0:13:00he established himself in deepest Chelsea and was, for three or four years,
0:13:00 > 0:13:05part of a very important design and interior-decorating world.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08He kept quiet about all that, he never mentioned it.
0:13:10 > 0:13:15Decoration was one of the foulest words in his vocabulary after that.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17Something that was decorative, you know, particularly in art,
0:13:17 > 0:13:19was like non-existent.
0:13:20 > 0:13:25He sensed, quite early on, that he wanted more than that.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27Obviously, he had to make his way, you know?
0:13:27 > 0:13:31And of course, he made nothing from the painting but the painting soon
0:13:31 > 0:13:33became the obsessive thing.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38You know, he's almost, like, egging himself on to be confident enough to paint.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40And I love those early years' paintings.
0:13:41 > 0:13:46I have the 1933 early Crucifixion, the one like the Picasso Bathers.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51You know, I can't believe that I own it now.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56The first 15, 20 years of his life and career,
0:13:56 > 0:13:58so little of it survives.
0:13:58 > 0:14:00I mean, the ratio's about one per year.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04Between 1936 and 1944, there's an eight-year gap,
0:14:04 > 0:14:05we have no works at all.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07Now, he wasn't not painting.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11But Roy De Maistre, an artist who was extremely fond of Bacon,
0:14:11 > 0:14:15he painted a corner of Bacon's painting studio and you see paintings
0:14:15 > 0:14:18stacked up in the corner...the corners of the room,
0:14:18 > 0:14:19with their faces showing.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21We can see what he was painting.
0:14:21 > 0:14:22They were all destroyed,
0:14:22 > 0:14:26all these things, we have these tantalising glimpses of in another artist's work.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32There's the legend that grew up around this, that Bacon himself fostered,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35was that he then just walked away from the easel
0:14:35 > 0:14:40and only to re-emerge, of course, in the mid-40s with his great Three Studies.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43Um, this is not true.
0:14:43 > 0:14:47One thing I feel certain about is that he really, really was painting all the time.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51He desperately wanted to be, by then, a great artist.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53He didn't want to be mediocre.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56There are many strains in his earlier painting
0:14:56 > 0:14:57that you can trace
0:14:57 > 0:15:01in the development and evolution of the look that appeared
0:15:01 > 0:15:03in Three Studies.
0:15:04 > 0:15:11About 1943-44, it was then that I really started to paint.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15When at Lefevre we had that first exhibition
0:15:15 > 0:15:17with Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20and it was then that I showed those
0:15:20 > 0:15:24Three Studies For Figures At The Base Of A Crucifixion,
0:15:24 > 0:15:29which... People were very, very violently against those things.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33One of the usual bitchy critics, to me, said,
0:15:33 > 0:15:38"Why bother to do things like that when it's already been done by Picasso?"
0:15:38 > 0:15:43It was Graham Sutherland, I think, who recommended him to Erica Brausen,
0:15:43 > 0:15:47who was one of the brightest contemporary art dealers of the time,
0:15:47 > 0:15:52and when she saw his work she saw the point of it right away.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56She sold his painting 1946 to MoMA
0:15:56 > 0:16:01and that really was a very, very signal moment for Francis.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06He was always needing money to waste, you know, to gamble away.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08He was nothing but trouble to her.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12She just tolerated it and helped him as best she could.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15She was nurturing, she was devoted to him.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18She was a woman who really looked after him.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21And he went to Monaco,
0:16:21 > 0:16:24and it was the place where English people of his kind went
0:16:24 > 0:16:27and, if you wanted to gamble, it was the most glamorous place to go, still, to gamble.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30You could gamble in London, for goodness' sake, to some extent.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33But this was much more glamorous and much more congenial,
0:16:33 > 0:16:35in many other ways.
0:16:36 > 0:16:38I mean, it wasn't just Bacon who went to Monaco,
0:16:38 > 0:16:42there was this bizarre, probably ghastly, old nanny,
0:16:42 > 0:16:43but the one who he really loved.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH:
0:17:06 > 0:17:09He was terrible about getting paintings in on time.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12Brausen was always writing Bacon and saying, you know,
0:17:12 > 0:17:14"Francis, please...
0:17:16 > 0:17:19"We have a show planned for next December. How's it going?"
0:17:19 > 0:17:21And three months later, nothing.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24And his typical pattern was that he would destroy all his work
0:17:24 > 0:17:28until pretty near to a show when he would have to
0:17:28 > 0:17:30produce some paintings, finally.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35He was there most of the time between 1946-49, even into early 1950,
0:17:35 > 0:17:38and produced almost nothing.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41He'd been rethinking what he must do in his art.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43He knew he must say something.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46It was no use being derivative of Picasso.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50And he knew, in fact, his subject must be the human body
0:17:50 > 0:17:53and that it must come from his own life and his own experience.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00Part of what he had to express needed a new way of painting.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06The heads are astonishing.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10They're so close to the animal.
0:18:10 > 0:18:11The animal in the man.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14In those images that Bacon did,
0:18:14 > 0:18:18it's as if you can feel the breath of
0:18:18 > 0:18:20the animal on your neck.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22Or as if you're going into some dark cave
0:18:22 > 0:18:25and you smell the animal before you see it.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27I mean, it's so visceral.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30The animal is so close.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38The fact that Francis Bacon had no formal training
0:18:38 > 0:18:43probably freed him in a way that other people were not as free.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45He was not part of any movement.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48Francis Bacon was an outlier in a most interesting way.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52I think he probably did go to one or two classes and things like that.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55He certainly never mentioned that afterwards,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58and he picked up quite a lot from painter friends.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04Denis and Francis Bacon came from a similar background.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07Both were untrained as artists.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10So this was a link, both were self-taught.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12Francis Bacon was inevitably
0:19:12 > 0:19:15the main event in Denis's life.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20Dickie and Denis were the main event in each other's lives.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25Richard Chopping, known as Dickie, was his partner.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28Bacon could have actually been a hell of a lot of trouble
0:19:28 > 0:19:30to the relationship but he wasn't,
0:19:30 > 0:19:34and Denis would put up with anything.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Francis would equally put up with anything that Denis threw at him.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41And between them, this relationship went like that for many, many years.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43When they were partying and drinking together in Soho,
0:19:43 > 0:19:44they would come and drag me out,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47with them usually six bottles of champagne ahead of me.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49And it would end up with punching in the face,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52noses being broken in galleries,
0:19:52 > 0:19:54there were plates broken on people's heads.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58Turned out, banned from places, the stories just go on and on and on.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Do you know, I don't care if I fuck up the whole of the film,
0:20:01 > 0:20:03but you can never say things as clearly in French,
0:20:03 > 0:20:06- as you say it in English. - Yes, of course he can. - Of course you can't.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10Go away, darling. Avec Rembrandt, avec Michel-Ange.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25You know, you're going to be cheapened.
0:20:25 > 0:20:27- OK.- Very.- I'll be cheapened.- Very.
0:20:30 > 0:20:33There were a lot of things that they were using
0:20:33 > 0:20:34as common subject matter.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37They both had boxing magazines.
0:20:37 > 0:20:38They had magazines of runners.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40They used Eadweard Muybridge's work.
0:20:42 > 0:20:47Denis did introduce Francis to Muybridge, arguably the most, with Picasso,
0:20:47 > 0:20:49the most important influence on his work.
0:20:51 > 0:20:53It's a very interesting work.
0:20:53 > 0:20:59And the images were tremendously suggestive to me of ways I could use the human body.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05Francis drew badly and was very conscious of it.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09And I think facing up to the fact that he had never been taught drawing...
0:21:09 > 0:21:15And he used Muybridge's amazing photographs of athletes in weird positions
0:21:15 > 0:21:17again and again,
0:21:17 > 0:21:21because there the limbs were dead accurate and he could use them,
0:21:21 > 0:21:27as it were, as sketches for a whole series of paintings...
0:21:27 > 0:21:31though, above all, the painting known as The Buggers.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36I used to go and visit Lucien Freud and Caroline Blackwood in their house.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41They had the painting which they always called The Buggers,
0:21:41 > 0:21:45which was, is, I think, officially called The Wrestlers.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48I just simply thought it was a wonderful painting.
0:21:48 > 0:21:54I think, that when you're very young, you don't have preconceived
0:21:54 > 0:21:57notions of what is shocking.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04You just look at things to see if they are beautiful.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08There is no doubt that this is Bacon
0:22:08 > 0:22:12and the most important lover in his life.
0:22:14 > 0:22:15This is their coupling.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18This is their moment of greatest intensity.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23And this is the trigger, really, of Bacon's greatest images.
0:22:23 > 0:22:25It's where everything comes together.
0:22:34 > 0:22:39Francis's first major lover was Peter Lacy.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43He had been a Spitfire pilot.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48Francis was wildly in love.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54Bacon found him very charming.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57He said he was... He was amusing.
0:22:57 > 0:22:59And he played the piano.
0:22:59 > 0:23:00He sang.
0:23:00 > 0:23:05And Bacon saw him as somebody quite extraordinary.
0:23:08 > 0:23:14Other people didn't have this very enamoured view of Peter Lacy.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17I remember going to a gay bar,
0:23:17 > 0:23:20one evening, and Peter Lacy was there.
0:23:20 > 0:23:27He was very, sort of, soberly dressed, very straightforward.
0:23:27 > 0:23:34But he turned out to be, in fact, one of the most sadistic people...
0:23:35 > 0:23:37..I've ever come across.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45During the war, his nervous system was...was, basically, shot
0:23:45 > 0:23:48and he could become very violent.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51Francis was landed with a...
0:23:52 > 0:23:53..sadist
0:23:53 > 0:23:57who was going to thrash him to bits
0:23:57 > 0:24:00and he hadn't got Nanny to fall back on.
0:24:01 > 0:24:06When Nanny died - was it 1951? - he was heartbroken.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10She was his adviser, she ran his life
0:24:10 > 0:24:14and he had to depend on himself.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40They had a turbulent relationship.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43Lacy regularly beat Bacon up
0:24:43 > 0:24:47and that was something that Bacon actively encouraged and enjoyed.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57Peter had a house in the country and Francis went there one weekend.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04God knows what he'd done to him already but Peter Lacy simply threw him
0:25:04 > 0:25:08through a plate-glass window
0:25:08 > 0:25:13on the second floor, onto the garden at the back of the house.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18And Francis had terrible damage to one eye and to his face and so on.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22But this made him love Peter Lacy more, I think.
0:25:23 > 0:25:30And he turned these horrible, terrible things into magic,
0:25:30 > 0:25:32into great paintings.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39Peter himself was very often the subject of any male figure
0:25:39 > 0:25:42in the painting. He's always there.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47And I think he stirred the very depths of Bacon's being.
0:25:47 > 0:25:53He managed to create these very strange, eerie images,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56against a dark blue background.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58Very ghostly.
0:26:02 > 0:26:03Peter Lacy's...
0:26:05 > 0:26:09..power over Francis, sadistic power over Francis...
0:26:10 > 0:26:14And I hope it won't shock people - it was a very positive one.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21It was regarded as a rather dirty habit,
0:26:21 > 0:26:23to go and look at the paintings of Bacon,
0:26:23 > 0:26:27because the whole fashion was abstract expressionism
0:26:27 > 0:26:29and everything American.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33Here was this man actually painting the human figure...
0:26:34 > 0:26:39..in this quite shocking way, at that time.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44Bacon had a slowly growing reputation,
0:26:44 > 0:26:48but he was an extremely difficult artist.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51So it took a great deal of time
0:26:51 > 0:26:54for Bacon's imagery to become popular.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57But bit by bit, exhibition by exhibition,
0:26:57 > 0:27:00collector by collector,
0:27:00 > 0:27:02Bacon's reputation was being made.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09Peter Lacy said at this particular point, "You can come and live with me."
0:27:09 > 0:27:13And Bacon said, "Well, what does living with you mean?"
0:27:13 > 0:27:18And Lacy said, "Well, I could chain you to the wall."
0:27:18 > 0:27:23And Bacon said, "Well, the thing is, I did terribly want to paint."
0:27:26 > 0:27:29And so because of that, Lacy started visiting Tangier.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36By that time, the relationship had broken down.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41Bacon felt he needed to go to another stage.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44He wanted to go to the very top.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48And there was a powerful and relatively new gallery
0:27:48 > 0:27:50called Marlborough Fine Art.
0:27:51 > 0:27:56Bacon had been considering leaving Erica and the Hanover Gallery for some time.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58Because he was quite overwhelmed by debts.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01The Marlborough Gallery, for example, had deeper pockets,
0:28:01 > 0:28:03could pay a kind of salary.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05They were like a cash flow for him.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09I remember going in with him to pick up a wad of cash
0:28:09 > 0:28:12so that he could go on, sort of, inviting everybody in sight
0:28:12 > 0:28:16to champagne and dinner afterwards and then go and play the tables.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21And the great attraction of the time for the Marlborough was what?
0:28:21 > 0:28:23Well, they've got,
0:28:23 > 0:28:25as they have galleries all over the world,
0:28:25 > 0:28:28perhaps they thought they could do something with me.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34Frank Lloyd, the owner, partner of Marlborough...
0:28:34 > 0:28:38realised that, I think, that Francis was going to be the golden goose,
0:28:38 > 0:28:40if they...
0:28:41 > 0:28:42..marketed properly.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45He did need a lot of managing.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50And the only release for the paintings came through Valerie.
0:28:50 > 0:28:52She was my direct boss.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56Francis Bacon's life at Marlborough revolved to a huge extent
0:28:56 > 0:28:58around Valerie Beston, or as he called her,
0:28:58 > 0:29:00Valerie from the Gallery.
0:29:00 > 0:29:02She was always there for him.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05It was as if Bacon was the love of her life.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09And she was, you know, completely 100% devoted,
0:29:09 > 0:29:13in the same way that Erica Brausen had been initially in his career.
0:29:13 > 0:29:14I mean, they were saying to Bacon,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17we will give you exhibitions at the Tate,
0:29:17 > 0:29:20and they absolutely delivered on their promises.
0:29:20 > 0:29:24You know, within three years he'd got the first Tate retrospective.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34There were many critics who still did not like Bacon's work.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39The Tate retrospective in 1962, I think was very important for him.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43At that stage Peter Lacy was in Morocco.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45A lot of people of that time were saying that
0:29:45 > 0:29:48he was just, like, this very sad figure playing away at the piano,
0:29:48 > 0:29:51almost like paying off his alcoholic debts.
0:29:51 > 0:29:53Francis writes to Denis, saying,
0:29:53 > 0:29:55"I've heard that he's falling to pieces.
0:29:55 > 0:29:57"Can you find out for me?
0:29:57 > 0:29:59"I really need to know, I can't concentrate on anything."
0:30:00 > 0:30:02Bacon is
0:30:02 > 0:30:05feeling pity for Peter.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08"I'm totally upset over Peter.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11"I can't bear to see anyone suffer because of me."
0:30:12 > 0:30:18I think Bacon created best when he was himself most disturbed,
0:30:18 > 0:30:20most at sea.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27Francis used to say, "I've used everybody in my life."
0:30:30 > 0:30:32He does go into a kind of crisis.
0:30:32 > 0:30:35That may have been what was happening with Bacon at that time.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40I think that was to do with his inner need to renew his art,
0:30:40 > 0:30:44to not repeat himself, to stretch.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51He did a painting right before the 1962 Tate exhibition called,
0:30:51 > 0:30:55I believe it was called Three Studies for a Crucifixion.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59It's an indication of where he wants to go.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03It's a blood-red and black triptych.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09In the left-hand panel there is a paternal figure,
0:31:09 > 0:31:15more or less telling a smaller figure to go.
0:31:17 > 0:31:20I've always thought of that as Bacon being thrown out of the house.
0:31:22 > 0:31:24In the middle there is a scene,
0:31:24 > 0:31:28a really bloody mangled scene on a bed.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33It's the most extreme expression of the horror he felt about his life,
0:31:33 > 0:31:34I think, and what it felt to be...
0:31:35 > 0:31:38..Francis Bacon and all the horrors he'd witnessed.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41And he did describe the central panel
0:31:41 > 0:31:44as someone shot to pieces on a bed.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47And that's not normal language, not just from him,
0:31:47 > 0:31:48but for a Bacon painting.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52And in this case, well, it does look like someone shot to pieces on a bed.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55It looks like a murder has taken place.
0:31:56 > 0:32:01He would almost empty himself of his darkest,
0:32:01 > 0:32:06bitterest thoughts on canvas and be purified.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10But of course he was Jekyll and Hyde
0:32:10 > 0:32:14and so the two sides were there in the man.
0:32:17 > 0:32:20I remember going to the big '62 retrospective at the Tate...
0:32:22 > 0:32:24..and I had a very nice girlfriend
0:32:24 > 0:32:28who was vegetarian, though she converted,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31under my tutelage, to meat, but she didn't convert to Bacon.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36I think that was when he really came out as a superstar,
0:32:36 > 0:32:38in Britain anyway.
0:32:38 > 0:32:42And I think he saw, this was a perfect moment for him to shine and,
0:32:42 > 0:32:44my God, shine he did.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52But amongst the telegrams of congratulation,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55he got one from Tangier saying
0:32:55 > 0:32:59that his great love, Peter Lacy, had just died.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04Bacon was convinced it was a suicide.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06He talked about it as a suicide.
0:33:07 > 0:33:12And that Peter almost deliberately aimed for it to happen
0:33:12 > 0:33:15on the day his show opened.
0:33:18 > 0:33:24The painting of where Peter Lacy is buried was an enormously...
0:33:24 > 0:33:29enormously powerful painting, full of, you can't call it love exactly,
0:33:29 > 0:33:31but full of...
0:33:32 > 0:33:35..sort of, dark sexual obsession.
0:33:42 > 0:33:47The violence in Bacon's pictures calls forth equally violent reactions.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51David Sylvester was one of the first critics
0:33:51 > 0:33:54to recognise Bacon as an important artist.
0:33:54 > 0:33:55Actually in your work, as a whole,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57there are relatively few paintings that
0:33:57 > 0:34:01have ostensible subjects which might be called horrific.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05And most of them are fairly straight subjects,
0:34:05 > 0:34:07figures seated in rooms and so on.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11And yet, people have a sense that your work as a whole is horrific.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14David Sylvester was enormously important
0:34:14 > 0:34:17in that he was the PR man for Francis.
0:34:17 > 0:34:20And he did a damned good job.
0:34:20 > 0:34:22Because he was widely listened to.
0:34:22 > 0:34:24He was never off the BBC, where he could,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27he could hear the sound of his own voice.
0:34:27 > 0:34:28And he was...
0:34:30 > 0:34:31..perfect for Francis.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34I must have another drink.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37We might rest for a minute.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40Can we rest for a moment, or not, or must it go on?
0:34:44 > 0:34:48Bacon and Sylvester together created a manifesto
0:34:48 > 0:34:51of his inner life as an artist.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54Those interviews had a very big impact on many,
0:34:54 > 0:34:56especially young artists.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01When I was a student I completely devoured the David Sylvester interviews.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04It's like I read that constantly, over and over and over again.
0:35:04 > 0:35:06I think that was one of the greatest things about Bacon,
0:35:06 > 0:35:08was those interviews. Because he...
0:35:08 > 0:35:10It was just a new way of being interviewed,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13and it was kind of so fresh and exciting and it was like,
0:35:13 > 0:35:14you know, playful.
0:35:14 > 0:35:16It was like, you know, in denial.
0:35:16 > 0:35:18It just made you think differently about the paintings.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22He was nothing if not totally controlling
0:35:22 > 0:35:25of the people around him and the
0:35:25 > 0:35:28way his work was perceived.
0:35:28 > 0:35:32But I think Bacon the public persona
0:35:32 > 0:35:38was, to some extent, a way of shielding his images.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41He was just, you know, finding a way to sort of avoid the questions,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44to keep the painting fresh, to keep you looking at the painting,
0:35:44 > 0:35:45to never give you answers.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48Francis attracted a certain amount of awe.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52He was quite a frightening fellow, or had been in his prime.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54And also a certain amount of oiling up to.
0:35:54 > 0:35:59So I think the cult, or the fame, was built up in the '60s.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07He's got his new studio in Reece Mews,
0:36:07 > 0:36:09I think it was very important to him.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11He felt he'd got his own space,
0:36:11 > 0:36:15he could really get to work and do what he wanted to say powerfully.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20We are in a wonderful little secret mews
0:36:20 > 0:36:24just off of South Ken, called Reece Mews.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27I first came to know it when I met Lionel Bart.
0:36:27 > 0:36:33His neighbour turned out to be Francis Bacon.
0:36:33 > 0:36:35He was very funny.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38He was very witty. He was very clever.
0:36:38 > 0:36:42But there was a kind of an underlying kind of melancholy about him.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46But Lionel Bart told me that in his kitchen there were loads of
0:36:46 > 0:36:52photographs, and he'd noticed there were rather a lot of me, you know.
0:36:52 > 0:36:54And Lionel said to him,
0:36:54 > 0:36:58"Oh, you think... You know, you like Terence?"
0:36:58 > 0:37:02And Francis said,
0:37:02 > 0:37:06"God, the two most handsomest men in the world
0:37:06 > 0:37:10"are Terence Stamp and Colonel Gaddafi!"
0:37:10 > 0:37:13I thought, "Yeah, Colonel Gaddafi would give him a good hiding," you know?
0:37:13 > 0:37:15HE LAUGHS
0:37:15 > 0:37:20I'd just knock on his door if I was passing and if he would open the door,
0:37:20 > 0:37:23sometimes he'd invite me in, sometimes he wouldn't.
0:37:23 > 0:37:28And sometimes when he invited me in I realised he was the middle of something.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32It struck me that it was a very private thing that was happening.
0:37:32 > 0:37:37And...he had to devote himself completely to it.
0:37:42 > 0:37:47As an artist, Bacon was always trying to do it a bit better, you know?
0:37:47 > 0:37:49You know, you've never arrived,
0:37:49 > 0:37:51there wouldn't be much point if you'd arrived.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54You know, he would have stopped painting in 1962,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57or something, if he was satisfied.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01How are you going to trap reality?
0:38:01 > 0:38:02How are you going to trap appearance
0:38:02 > 0:38:05without making an illustration of it?
0:38:05 > 0:38:09And that is one of the great fights and one of the great excitements
0:38:09 > 0:38:12of being, of being a figurative artist today.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17It was a moment that he was beginning to look to
0:38:17 > 0:38:21the people that he was friends with,
0:38:21 > 0:38:24beginning to think about painting the people
0:38:24 > 0:38:26he felt he knew inside out.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29I mean, he had a great love of people.
0:38:30 > 0:38:32And a vulnerability to them.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35The artist doesn't choose the subject,
0:38:35 > 0:38:38the subject chooses the artist.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40But there was his subject.
0:38:40 > 0:38:46I only am able to paint people or portraits of people that I know very well
0:38:46 > 0:38:48and I've looked at a great deal.
0:38:48 > 0:38:54And that I have analysed, and know the structure of their face.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58I find that the person there inhibits me.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01And then I use... I look at photographs.
0:39:01 > 0:39:03So the photographs and everything get trodden on,
0:39:03 > 0:39:06they get even changed into other things.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11And those often are in themselves extremely interesting.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16The presence of the person in a portrait
0:39:16 > 0:39:19is so fully there because he managed to empty himself
0:39:19 > 0:39:22of everything, so that that person could come
0:39:22 > 0:39:25through him and onto the canvas.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29Of course men were a great subject for him, and the male body.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32Women were also extremely important to Bacon,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35both personally and in terms of his art.
0:39:35 > 0:39:41He had a need for family and he sort of put a lot of women into that role.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43And he had a number of those throughout his life.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49IN FRENCH:
0:40:10 > 0:40:13You look at the women he chose to paint,
0:40:13 > 0:40:18they have very strong characteristics in common.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20Muriel had a very strong visage
0:40:20 > 0:40:22that was almost imperial,
0:40:22 > 0:40:25and it was easy for him, in a sense,
0:40:25 > 0:40:26to convey exactly that
0:40:26 > 0:40:29strength of character that she had.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33Isabel Rawsthrone was another,
0:40:33 > 0:40:37a woman of almost staggering physical presence.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40And Henrietta Moraes, who was curvaceous,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43but she was also very, very strong.
0:40:43 > 0:40:50I first met Henrietta Moraes across a big lunch table
0:40:50 > 0:40:55and it was like being opposite a Bacon painting.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58I mean, it was almost as if she wasn't real
0:40:58 > 0:41:02because of his portraits of Henrietta.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10Henrietta is one of the most interesting of the Soho characters.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12She, like many others,
0:41:12 > 0:41:14could not wait to get away from her convent past
0:41:14 > 0:41:17and get into the life of Soho.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20Hen? She was amazing,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23she was one of the most wonderful people I've ever known.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29No wonder Francis adored her, you know?
0:41:29 > 0:41:32And Francis understood, you know.
0:41:32 > 0:41:37He was Irish, he understood how hard it is
0:41:37 > 0:41:42if you've been through that terrible sort of Catholicism thing.
0:41:42 > 0:41:48How dreadfully hard it is to break out of it and get free.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52He was never burdened by that, was he? He was never burdened by that guilt?
0:41:52 > 0:41:55Well, if he was, it was... I think he was a bit.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58Actually, I'm sorry, but I think he was.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02Henrietta always said to me,
0:42:02 > 0:42:06"Ah, yes, perhaps he doth protest too much."
0:42:07 > 0:42:09I think he painted Henrietta 15 times.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14I mean, his work can be seen as a search for God.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18Although he would probably certainly deny it.
0:42:18 > 0:42:25His sort of frustration, if you like, with not finding God.
0:42:25 > 0:42:27'When you paint anything, you ask the same...'
0:42:27 > 0:42:31You are also painting not only the subject,
0:42:31 > 0:42:33but you are painting yourself
0:42:33 > 0:42:37as well as, as the object that you're trying to record.
0:42:45 > 0:42:47One time she didn't like,
0:42:47 > 0:42:53was there was one of the pictures where he had a hypodermic in her arm.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56- It was a hypodermic syringe. - BACON:- It was a hypodermic syringe.
0:42:58 > 0:43:03But I wanted something to nail the image, the figure, as it were,
0:43:03 > 0:43:04to the...to the bed.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09And it looked more logical with a hypodermic syringe.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12I couldn't put a nail through their arm,
0:43:12 > 0:43:15so it was much easier to put a hypodermic syringe.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18But it wasn't an attempt suggest that the person was a drug addict?
0:43:21 > 0:43:24I can see what Francis was getting at,
0:43:24 > 0:43:28but I can also see that Henrietta didn't want that.
0:43:30 > 0:43:35Henrietta herself later, looking back at it said, you know, in effect,
0:43:35 > 0:43:39"Oh, my God, who could have known? This is prescience,
0:43:39 > 0:43:43"and it's foreshadowing what was going to happen to my life that was to come,"
0:43:43 > 0:43:46which was indeed much more druggy than, you know,
0:43:46 > 0:43:50Francis Bacon could have anticipated at the time he'd painted it.
0:43:50 > 0:43:54You know, we weren't really in the same crowd.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57I was much younger.
0:43:57 > 0:44:04And I was smoking hash and taking LSD and Francis was a drinker.
0:44:04 > 0:44:12But then, once I had left Mick and my life kind of fell apart, really,
0:44:12 > 0:44:19and I was living on a wall in St Anne's Court, on heroin.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23So I didn't feel the cold.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27And I also had, but I didn't know it, anorexia.
0:44:27 > 0:44:33And I must have been on Francis's route from the French
0:44:33 > 0:44:36to Wheeler's or something like that.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40And not all the time, but every now and again
0:44:40 > 0:44:44Francis would go past my wall and sort of pick me up
0:44:44 > 0:44:48and take me to Wheeler's and feed me.
0:44:48 > 0:44:55And the most wonderful thing about it, apart from the food, of course,
0:44:55 > 0:44:59was that he never commented or judged
0:44:59 > 0:45:05or said anything about my strange life, you know?
0:45:05 > 0:45:10Me, at 22, living on a wall in Soho,
0:45:10 > 0:45:14with the meths drinkers and all that, you know?
0:45:14 > 0:45:18He never made any judgment or said a word.
0:45:18 > 0:45:23We had a wonderful time, we talked about absolutely everything.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28And that's when I told him about my great-great-uncle Leopold,
0:45:28 > 0:45:31which, of course, he knew all about,
0:45:31 > 0:45:36and we discussed de Sade and masochism
0:45:36 > 0:45:39and lots of very interesting things
0:45:39 > 0:45:43that I didn't realise till much later
0:45:43 > 0:45:47how interesting they were to Francis, of course.
0:45:49 > 0:45:51But I guessed something was up.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58He was obsessed by sex.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04He was plugged into all sorts of different things
0:46:04 > 0:46:08that most people aren't aware of.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13When we were out, at certain moments he'd sort of almost
0:46:13 > 0:46:17walk through a wall into a different world.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19And disappear.
0:46:19 > 0:46:21And what happened then, I don't know.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43The next day he'd reappear in a damaged state, you know,
0:46:43 > 0:46:46barely able to walk or turn his head.
0:46:46 > 0:46:51And there was no point in sort of saying, "Well, what happened, Francis?"
0:46:51 > 0:46:55Because he'd, at best, he'd just, you know,
0:46:55 > 0:47:00he'd just fix you with a sort of basilisk stare and say, "What do you mean?"
0:47:07 > 0:47:12I was fast asleep one night when the phone went and Valerie Beston said,
0:47:12 > 0:47:15"Paul, quickly, quickly, you've got to come to Reece Mews."
0:47:15 > 0:47:18I've got there and he had
0:47:18 > 0:47:22a huge injury, right the way across
0:47:22 > 0:47:25from his left eye right the way across,
0:47:25 > 0:47:27right round the right eye.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31All the skin had been broken and he was in a terrible mess.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35And I said, "Francis, you need a plastic surgeon."
0:47:35 > 0:47:38"No," he said, "you sew me up now."
0:47:38 > 0:47:40I said, "I'll put some local anaesthetic in."
0:47:40 > 0:47:43He said, "No, I don't want any local anaesthetic."
0:47:43 > 0:47:49That's the only time I realised that he quite enjoyed being hurt.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Francis liked the criminal side of London, you know?
0:47:52 > 0:47:55He liked the kind of...
0:47:55 > 0:47:58sordidness of London,
0:47:58 > 0:48:01all that kind of East End dross
0:48:01 > 0:48:04and knowing all those kind of people.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08Or wanting to know all those kind of people.
0:48:12 > 0:48:16George Dyer came on the scene as this
0:48:16 > 0:48:22tough, well-built muscular boxer-like East End thug.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25And I think through George he, you know, was able...
0:48:25 > 0:48:29George and George's family, through all that,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32he got to know, you know, quite a lot of bad boys,
0:48:32 > 0:48:34including the Krays.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38Who did come knocking on his door. Cos they wanted a painting.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42I like painting good-looking people.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44Because I like their bone structure.
0:48:44 > 0:48:46I loathe my own.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51But little by little it became apparent
0:48:51 > 0:48:52that however sort of virile
0:48:52 > 0:48:59and thug-like he looked, he was actually a very nice, lost young man.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04George was obviously rather reticent with the whip.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06So, little by little,
0:49:06 > 0:49:13Francis became disabused because George had been, in that sense, a disappointment.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15He was a kind of very feeble East End thug,
0:49:15 > 0:49:18and he liked children and animals and cuddling.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22Bacon said, "Oh, I hate the billing and cooing of sex. I just like the sex."
0:49:22 > 0:49:25And he wanted George to rape him and George wanted to cuddle.
0:49:27 > 0:49:32Francis confided just about everything to do with his relationship with George.
0:49:32 > 0:49:37And it seemed that the sexual relationship had a real downturn.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41George was suffering from erectile dysfunction.
0:49:43 > 0:49:47It seems to me that Francis had emasculated George,
0:49:47 > 0:49:53he found what he saw as the typical rough East Ender that he longed
0:49:53 > 0:49:57to find, and then he did that job of emasculating him.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01Francis did his best to make George Dyer
0:50:01 > 0:50:05into something. And I think he did that on canvas.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11Bacon was violent in the way he painted,
0:50:11 > 0:50:15he was sadistic in the way he took apart George
0:50:15 > 0:50:18with missing ears and missing jaws
0:50:18 > 0:50:21and missing eyes, missing everything, really.
0:50:22 > 0:50:26George was a bit appalled by the whole thing.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29He saw all of these rich people standing around sort of, you know,
0:50:29 > 0:50:33in this smart gallery.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36He said to me, you know, "I think they're 'orrible.
0:50:36 > 0:50:39"They're really 'orrible."
0:50:39 > 0:50:41He said, "And he thinks I look like that!"
0:50:44 > 0:50:46George knew all the prices for the pictures.
0:50:46 > 0:50:53And he said, "And these people go and pay fucking thousands of pounds for 'em."
0:50:55 > 0:50:57I mean, he portrays him as a kind of idiot.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59He has things with what looks almost like
0:50:59 > 0:51:02a nappy on his head or something.
0:51:02 > 0:51:04And dressed as a baby.
0:51:04 > 0:51:06I mean, need I say more?
0:51:13 > 0:51:20There were certainly moments when things were firing up between them.
0:51:20 > 0:51:22They had lovers' tiffs.
0:51:22 > 0:51:27The one time when Francis phoned me and said, "You have to come round,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30"you have to come round right away because George has gone berserk
0:51:30 > 0:51:33"and all my suits are in the bath and he's poured paint all over them
0:51:33 > 0:51:35"and he's trampling up and down."
0:51:35 > 0:51:37And I went round.
0:51:37 > 0:51:42And I couldn't get in because the front door was barred.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44So I had to back the vehicle up,
0:51:44 > 0:51:49get up onto the roof and go through the window where I was nearly
0:51:49 > 0:51:52throttled by George until he realised who it was.
0:51:52 > 0:51:54And he had, in fact,
0:51:54 > 0:51:58thrown two thirds of the furniture down the staircase.
0:52:00 > 0:52:03Dyer is fighting, in a way...
0:52:03 > 0:52:06He's just going downhill, downhill, downhill,
0:52:06 > 0:52:07it must have been terrible to watch.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10So it's almost like a desperate attempt to get back in with Bacon
0:52:10 > 0:52:13and show Bacon that he is still a man.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17Francis was painting fewer pictures of George.
0:52:17 > 0:52:18He was weary of him, I think.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22Weary of his problems, of his drinking, of his carousing,
0:52:22 > 0:52:25of his unhappiness, perhaps.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28His better judgment told him that he needed to be shot of Dyer.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Bacon began moving away from George.
0:52:33 > 0:52:37He looked more to Paris, at a time when other British artists were
0:52:37 > 0:52:40resolutely not looking to Paris.
0:52:41 > 0:52:47I think Bacon's interest in France goes all the way back to 1928,
0:52:47 > 0:52:49on his first trip there.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53IN FRENCH:
0:53:18 > 0:53:21In 1971, getting a show at the Grand Palais
0:53:21 > 0:53:24was the great moment of his life.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26It was the turning point.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Huge. The first English artist to be offered the Grand Palais.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33So, really, really big time.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35It was very important this went well.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39I understand that the British embassy were very worried in case
0:53:39 > 0:53:41a typical Bacon scene erupted and it was, you know,
0:53:41 > 0:53:43something terrible happened there.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47George, Francis, myself, Miss Beston,
0:53:47 > 0:53:51all had rooms in this particular hotel.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55Everybody else was saying, "Don't bring George, he'll ruin everything."
0:53:55 > 0:53:59Dicky and Denis and some others with Francis had gone out and they saw the venue.
0:53:59 > 0:54:04And there was a big red carpet and there were the soldiers standing there.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08They all described to me these leather boots up to the knees
0:54:08 > 0:54:10and the red stripe up the soldiers' tight trousers.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13And they were fairly taken by this.
0:54:13 > 0:54:14They said Francis was...
0:54:14 > 0:54:17You could see him sort of swell with pride at this.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20And they went back to the hotel thinking this was going to be a good evening.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23And Francis went up to his room.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27There was a stink of drugs, unwashed bodies, dirty sex, and the rent boy,
0:54:27 > 0:54:30the very dirty rent boy, who was in there with George.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33And Francis was furious.
0:54:33 > 0:54:38Dicky, Denis and Francis, they went drinking, they went gambling.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41They had a four, five, six-course meal.
0:54:41 > 0:54:46They hardly hurried home, knowing that George was in such a bad state.
0:54:46 > 0:54:51I can't remember, exactly, the time, but it must have been sort of two o'clock in the morning.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54There was a knock at my door and it was Francis.
0:54:54 > 0:55:00And he said, could he come and spend the night in my room
0:55:00 > 0:55:02cos I had double... You know, two beds.
0:55:02 > 0:55:08Because George had brought home an Arab with smelly feet.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12And it was so disgusting he couldn't stand it any longer.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19And in the morning he said,
0:55:19 > 0:55:25"Just go and see if George has got rid of the Arab."
0:55:25 > 0:55:29There was no evidence of George being around, you know,
0:55:29 > 0:55:33the bed was in a real state of disarray.
0:55:35 > 0:55:40And I then checked with Miss Beston around the room,
0:55:40 > 0:55:43and looked in the bathroom.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46And George was on the toilet.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49Apparently Miss Beston pushed him out of the way, went in there,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53and did pulses and things like this and said, "No, he's dead."
0:55:55 > 0:55:58I never even thought about it being a suicide attempt.
0:56:00 > 0:56:01It could well have been.
0:56:03 > 0:56:08We thought brought about by him being so drunk
0:56:08 > 0:56:12and taking the wrong tablets.
0:56:12 > 0:56:14And so she said, "Right, I'll take care of this."
0:56:14 > 0:56:16And Terry was pushed out of the way.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18And down she went.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22And Valerie did the fixing to then make sure that
0:56:22 > 0:56:25the death was found two days later.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29I think it was a joint decision between Francis,
0:56:29 > 0:56:34Valerie and the hotel manager.
0:56:34 > 0:56:36Why was that decision made?
0:56:36 > 0:56:39It might have put the opening in jeopardy.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43It had to be sorted for Francis.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48It was bizarre to think that, you know,
0:56:48 > 0:56:52this body was going to be left in a hotel room overnight.
0:56:57 > 0:57:02You know, it's a hell of a thing to decide not to report a dead body.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06Whether that was Bacon's idea, you can't be sure.
0:57:06 > 0:57:08You know? I mean,
0:57:08 > 0:57:11it looks like maybe that's what happened,
0:57:11 > 0:57:12but it's still a hell of a thing.
0:57:12 > 0:57:14I mean, that's a crime.
0:57:24 > 0:57:29Once the Grand Palais retrospective had opened,
0:57:29 > 0:57:32the news began to sort of filter out,
0:57:32 > 0:57:35and of course it got round with all the speed of bad news.
0:57:35 > 0:57:40During the dinner, the whole room knew that George had committed suicide,
0:57:40 > 0:57:43but up until then nobody had heard.
0:57:43 > 0:57:45Francis himself was in the Grand Palais.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48I think, it was as though he wasn't really there.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52He seemed totally abstracted. He was pale,
0:57:52 > 0:57:55but he went through with the dinner because he felt that it was better
0:57:55 > 0:57:58to go through with it than to cancel.
0:57:58 > 0:58:03So, the stories about Francis being told at the opening of his show and
0:58:03 > 0:58:06him being so brave and going ahead with the show,
0:58:06 > 0:58:09despite having been given this dramatic news, are absolute tosh.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12He knew that two days before. Someone may well have gone up to him
0:58:12 > 0:58:15and told him the story, but that was a bit of playacting.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18There was a picture that the French had bought, a big triptych,
0:58:18 > 0:58:23which actually has George sitting on a sort of beautifully painted
0:58:23 > 0:58:25creamy white toilet.
0:58:25 > 0:58:29And because the French state had just bought it,
0:58:29 > 0:58:33President Pompidou paused for a long time in front of that image.
0:58:33 > 0:58:38He had to stand there and talk about this image,
0:58:38 > 0:58:43knowing that George had recently died in exactly that position.
0:58:46 > 0:58:49IN FRENCH:
0:59:11 > 0:59:13And it was all...
0:59:18 > 0:59:21..awful and sad.
0:59:23 > 0:59:27This tragic event...
0:59:29 > 0:59:35..at the same time, gave him perhaps the deepest
0:59:35 > 0:59:38subject he was ever to have in his life.
0:59:38 > 0:59:40It seems a bit mad,
0:59:40 > 0:59:43painting portraits of dead people.
0:59:43 > 0:59:47After all, if their flesh has rotted away...
0:59:49 > 0:59:51..once they're dead,
0:59:51 > 0:59:55you have your memory of them, but...
0:59:57 > 0:59:59- ..you haven't got- them.
1:00:04 > 1:00:09He actually went back to Paris to absorb the memories,
1:00:09 > 1:00:11to relive the events.
1:00:11 > 1:00:14And actually stayed in the same hotel
1:00:14 > 1:00:17where George had killed himself.
1:00:19 > 1:00:26And from this sort of well of guilt and grief he dredged up
1:00:26 > 1:00:30these extraordinarily haunting images that are some of, I think,
1:00:30 > 1:00:34the most profound images in painting.
1:00:39 > 1:00:41When it came into the gallery...
1:00:42 > 1:00:45..and I saw it for the first time...
1:00:46 > 1:00:51..if Francis showed any emotion to the death,
1:00:51 > 1:00:52the emotion was in that painting.
1:00:54 > 1:00:57Everything that he felt
1:00:57 > 1:01:00about George was in those paintings.
1:01:02 > 1:01:06Maybe it was just about getting it out of his system.
1:01:06 > 1:01:10So, paint them, get them out the studio,
1:01:10 > 1:01:12and then maybe I'll feel better.
1:01:15 > 1:01:19It got him recognition far beyond anything he'd ever had before.
1:01:19 > 1:01:22It was the turning point in sales
1:01:22 > 1:01:25and sort of international reputation.
1:01:31 > 1:01:33HE YELLS
1:01:44 > 1:01:49He was very much collected by very important film directors.
1:01:49 > 1:01:52And influenced, of course, in the actual films,
1:01:52 > 1:01:54Pasolini and Bertolucci.
1:01:56 > 1:01:59He was au courant, you know?
1:01:59 > 1:02:02And the power of his paintings fitted the period.
1:02:04 > 1:02:07And he's a great inspiration.
1:02:16 > 1:02:19'When I made Theorem with Pasolini,'
1:02:19 > 1:02:22one day, he just showed up with this book.
1:02:22 > 1:02:25And it was a book of Francis's paintings.
1:02:25 > 1:02:28And he said, you know, "When you're talking to the son,
1:02:28 > 1:02:30"you can kind of be flicking through this."
1:02:30 > 1:02:33And I realised, "Oh, he knows about Francis."
1:02:33 > 1:02:36It becomes self-perpetuating.
1:02:36 > 1:02:40Francis Bacon, who already at that time, late '70s, was famous.
1:02:40 > 1:02:42I was right next door.
1:02:42 > 1:02:44And people would approach me
1:02:44 > 1:02:49to try and get a painting on the cheap
1:02:49 > 1:02:51without going through his gallery at Marlborough.
1:02:51 > 1:02:53Or to be painted by him.
1:02:53 > 1:02:56And I would fix little things for him,
1:02:56 > 1:02:58like a leaky pipe, electricity problem.
1:02:58 > 1:03:00Or I'd drive him somewhere.
1:03:00 > 1:03:04We sort of fairly quickly got over the homosexual vibes,
1:03:04 > 1:03:06if I put it that way.
1:03:06 > 1:03:10We got into that and I said, I just do not fancy men.
1:03:10 > 1:03:16BACON, IN FRENCH:
1:03:28 > 1:03:31Bacon became a quite lonely man.
1:03:31 > 1:03:37The ageing process is particularly hard on homosexuals.
1:03:37 > 1:03:44So, he was in a position of diminished physical beauty, as it were.
1:03:44 > 1:03:48I went a few times with Francis to the West End gay clubs.
1:03:48 > 1:03:50Sometimes John Edwards was there, sometimes not.
1:03:50 > 1:03:53John was like a son he never had.
1:03:53 > 1:03:55A friend.
1:03:55 > 1:03:57He really, really cared for John.
1:03:57 > 1:04:01John Edwards came into his life in a curious fashion.
1:04:01 > 1:04:05He ran, or helped to run, a pub in the East End.
1:04:05 > 1:04:09And Bacon had been there and said he'd come back with some friends.
1:04:09 > 1:04:13And asked John to stock in some champagne.
1:04:13 > 1:04:16And then Bacon didn't turn up. John was mightily pissed off.
1:04:16 > 1:04:19And at some point, in The Colony Room, told him.
1:04:19 > 1:04:21And this amused Bacon.
1:04:21 > 1:04:26Within a short space of time, they became inseparable.
1:04:26 > 1:04:28They were...
1:04:28 > 1:04:30They were a team, like Laurel and Hardy.
1:04:30 > 1:04:32They belonged together.
1:04:32 > 1:04:37They just became a very unusual loving relationship. But no sex.
1:04:37 > 1:04:40The important thing about the Edwards relationship was that it was
1:04:40 > 1:04:45paternal, but it's not always clear who is the father and who is the son.
1:04:46 > 1:04:48Oh, come in, John.
1:04:49 > 1:04:52I'm glad you came down.
1:04:52 > 1:04:57John, David is just asking me the most difficult question.
1:04:57 > 1:05:00The pictures of Edwards are often
1:05:00 > 1:05:03quite eroticised and quite gentle, you know.
1:05:03 > 1:05:06Yes, he has pieces of him that disappear,
1:05:06 > 1:05:08yes, he might be leaking, his form
1:05:08 > 1:05:10might be leaking onto the ground,
1:05:10 > 1:05:12but not with the kind of violence or
1:05:12 > 1:05:16brutality that you see in Bacon's earlier paintings.
1:05:22 > 1:05:24I often think of the Tempest in Shakespeare,
1:05:24 > 1:05:32that there's a sort of, almost an eerie calm in Bacon's later work.
1:05:32 > 1:05:35There's something rather beautiful and simplified.
1:05:39 > 1:05:44A new period, a third period of Bacon's work, the late landscapes.
1:05:44 > 1:05:47Bacon only did about ten of them before he died,
1:05:47 > 1:05:53but that's a discreet body of late work which is absolutely great,
1:05:53 > 1:05:55and some of his greatest work.
1:05:55 > 1:05:58He desperately wanted to be a great artist.
1:05:58 > 1:06:01He destroyed, right up to the end of his life,
1:06:01 > 1:06:03and by then every time he took a knife to a painting,
1:06:03 > 1:06:06he'd just thrown away £1 million,
1:06:06 > 1:06:09which is really admirable, I think.
1:06:10 > 1:06:16By 1982, he was very famous and he couldn't just...
1:06:16 > 1:06:19crumple up the canvas and put it in the dustbin outside 7 Reece Mews,
1:06:19 > 1:06:22because people were constantly going through his dustbin,
1:06:22 > 1:06:25looking for Bacon scraps, OK?
1:06:25 > 1:06:28So he wanted them absolutely destroyed.
1:06:28 > 1:06:30So he would phone me up and I would
1:06:30 > 1:06:32go over right away and I would do it.
1:06:32 > 1:06:35And the only way to destroy them was with a Stanley knife,
1:06:35 > 1:06:37so you cut into it, cut strips.
1:06:37 > 1:06:38Cut all the strips
1:06:38 > 1:06:42and then put it in a rubbish bag
1:06:42 > 1:06:46and then they were taken over to the Chelsea dump.
1:06:46 > 1:06:49And if you gave the man a fiver, who ran the fire,
1:06:49 > 1:06:54he would take the bag right in front of your eyes and things would be burnt there, OK?
1:06:54 > 1:06:57And then I'd report back to Francis that I did this.
1:06:57 > 1:07:00- What did it feel like, to destroy? - Terrible.
1:07:03 > 1:07:09It's... Heart-wrenching, gutting, terrible to destroy a Francis Bacon painting.
1:07:09 > 1:07:12And some of them, I obviously looked at them, I thought, "Pretty good.
1:07:12 > 1:07:13"I would like to have one."
1:07:15 > 1:07:18I didn't, though. No.
1:07:18 > 1:07:20Stupid!
1:07:21 > 1:07:24IN FRENCH:
1:07:30 > 1:07:32What's vultures in French?
1:07:49 > 1:07:52Francis trusted John. He would trust John with everything,
1:07:52 > 1:07:56from the early point. I remember John coming home and saying,
1:07:56 > 1:08:00"Francis told me where he keeps his money, where he keeps this, where he keeps that."
1:08:00 > 1:08:02It's quite understandable that the circle would
1:08:02 > 1:08:06look like this and say, "Who is he? What's he want?
1:08:06 > 1:08:09"Is he trying to take advantage?"
1:08:09 > 1:08:12So, yes, there was definitely suspicion.
1:08:12 > 1:08:17I must have first met John Edwards with Francis,
1:08:17 > 1:08:20presumably in Muriel's.
1:08:20 > 1:08:25He thought it was very funny to handcuff me to the bar.
1:08:26 > 1:08:29And he said he was going to place a bet.
1:08:29 > 1:08:33And I didn't have any appointment or anything I was doing that day,
1:08:33 > 1:08:35it was a free day,
1:08:35 > 1:08:38so, I wasn't worried.
1:08:38 > 1:08:41But it took him an hour and a half or a little more
1:08:41 > 1:08:46to place his bet, and so, he eventually
1:08:46 > 1:08:48did reappear, just when I was wondering
1:08:48 > 1:08:52what I would do if I was going to be there for the night.
1:08:52 > 1:08:55It was only one arm, so my drinking arm was free,
1:08:55 > 1:08:58and I was sitting drinking anyhow.
1:08:58 > 1:09:02The most important thing for Francis was that John had enough money to
1:09:02 > 1:09:04last his life. He changed his will.
1:09:04 > 1:09:08When you think of Francis and how complicated his life was,
1:09:08 > 1:09:10this will was one page long, just one page.
1:09:10 > 1:09:15And everything went to John Edwards if he succeeded Francis by three months.
1:09:15 > 1:09:19Francis always made John aware that he would inherit a lot of money.
1:09:23 > 1:09:27Well, Bacon said he thought about death every day of his life.
1:09:27 > 1:09:35And as he aged, it must have become more and more present to him, death,
1:09:35 > 1:09:37and as his friends died, others died...
1:09:37 > 1:09:42The death of Muriel... I think the fading of The Colony
1:09:42 > 1:09:45must have been difficult for Bacon.
1:09:45 > 1:09:49In the '80s, Soho really had ended.
1:09:49 > 1:09:53It was pretty much running on fumes and I think that that had, you know,
1:09:53 > 1:09:59a very depressing influence on Bacon on top of everything else.
1:09:59 > 1:10:02You know, it's - what is it? - 40 years on or something,
1:10:02 > 1:10:08and he would have been reminded greatly about the passing of time.
1:10:08 > 1:10:12Well, I'd seen Bacon around a lot, but I'd never spoken to him
1:10:12 > 1:10:16cos, I guess a kind of hero or something and I was quite young,
1:10:16 > 1:10:19but I used to see him in cafes in Soho.
1:10:19 > 1:10:22And if I'd been out late, I'd end up going early morning into
1:10:22 > 1:10:25a cafe, and sometimes he'd be having breakfast.
1:10:25 > 1:10:28So it was kind of odd to be in the same room as him and not speak to him
1:10:28 > 1:10:32but then, I just thought, what the hell would I say or whatever?
1:10:32 > 1:10:35In his last years, he looked very old and very tired
1:10:35 > 1:10:38and he must have felt very pained
1:10:38 > 1:10:42at that moment, you know, to see the world flashing before his eyes.
1:10:42 > 1:10:45John wasn't always there for him.
1:10:45 > 1:10:49John was there to support him, but he wasn't there 24/7.
1:10:49 > 1:10:52From day one, John had his partner, Philip.
1:10:52 > 1:10:57They'd been together five or six years before Francis came on the scene.
1:10:57 > 1:10:59And that was a no-go area.
1:10:59 > 1:11:01That was John's life,
1:11:01 > 1:11:02Francis was totally aware of that.
1:11:02 > 1:11:06John Edwards was travelling a lot, he didn't live in London, and again,
1:11:06 > 1:11:11I was living 20 metres away from him, so it deepened his trust in me.
1:11:11 > 1:11:15The opportunity came up to arrange a supper party at my place for Francis Bacon.
1:11:15 > 1:11:18So Frederick Ashton had already committed to come,
1:11:18 > 1:11:21who was the great choreographer of the time.
1:11:21 > 1:11:25I was left with an empty seat and I thought, "Who can I invite?"
1:11:25 > 1:11:30Jose Capelo was someone I used to see at first at the Royal Opera House.
1:11:30 > 1:11:32He was interested in art.
1:11:32 > 1:11:35And I phoned Jose and he leapt at the chance.
1:11:35 > 1:11:40And Ashton and Francis took an immediate liking to him.
1:11:40 > 1:11:42And Francis was rather famous, of course,
1:11:42 > 1:11:47for liking a certain amount of roughish trade.
1:11:47 > 1:11:52There was an element of relief with Jose, because Jose was firmly
1:11:52 > 1:11:55well-educated, professional middle class,
1:11:55 > 1:11:58and so was much easier to talk to.
1:11:58 > 1:12:01I think John would have been happy for Francis.
1:12:01 > 1:12:03There was no jealousy there between them.
1:12:03 > 1:12:06Nothing for John to worry about.
1:12:06 > 1:12:09John had all the keys to all the boxes.
1:12:09 > 1:12:14Francis Bacon and Jose Capelo shared a safety deposit box at Harrods.
1:12:14 > 1:12:15They both had keys.
1:12:15 > 1:12:20John wanted the key from Jose.
1:12:20 > 1:12:24Jose was very difficult to read, as far as what really drove him.
1:12:24 > 1:12:28And I never went further. He would clam up.
1:12:28 > 1:12:31They were travelling together. They would go to Venice, Madrid.
1:12:31 > 1:12:34Francis would come back with a big smile on his face.
1:12:34 > 1:12:36He was a happy man. He was in love
1:12:36 > 1:12:40and for Francis, that obviously meant sexually it was going well.
1:12:44 > 1:12:48Yes, in 1988, he's inspired.
1:12:48 > 1:12:50He re-works, re-studies.
1:12:50 > 1:12:53It is not brutish any longer.
1:12:53 > 1:12:58It's as if the monsters have been turned into silk,
1:12:58 > 1:13:02and they no longer are going to jump out of the frame and bite you.
1:13:02 > 1:13:04There is something distant.
1:13:04 > 1:13:06But that is kind of fascinating too, you know?
1:13:06 > 1:13:12I mean, to look at your earlier work, and your earlier
1:13:12 > 1:13:18juicy brutality, and then make it more designed,
1:13:18 > 1:13:23distant, behind glass - it's another feeling.
1:13:23 > 1:13:26- HIRST:- The Figure At The Base Of A Crucifixion,
1:13:26 > 1:13:28that's just an unbelievable painting.
1:13:29 > 1:13:33I mean, I made a couple of pieces which were directly, you know,
1:13:33 > 1:13:36taken from Bacon paintings.
1:13:36 > 1:13:39Like I made a three-dimensional triptych.
1:13:39 > 1:13:43I saw these kind of terrifying social spaces that Bacon was painting.
1:13:43 > 1:13:46I remember thinking, "I wonder if I could actually make these spaces?"
1:13:46 > 1:13:49I got a phone call from the Saatchi Gallery and they said,
1:13:49 > 1:13:52"Bacon was in today and he was stood in front of your sculpture for an hour."
1:13:52 > 1:13:55I was like, "An hour? No, can't be an hour."
1:13:55 > 1:13:58Around September 1990, we went up to Saatchi's -
1:13:58 > 1:14:01the first time he saw Damien Hirst.
1:14:01 > 1:14:05He liked one piece of Damien Hirst and we came back and we were having drinks.
1:14:05 > 1:14:07After you've drunk a bottle of wine
1:14:07 > 1:14:09you come to things that really matter,
1:14:09 > 1:14:12and it's not looking at Damien Hirst, it's your love affair.
1:14:12 > 1:14:17Jose had framed it like "Francis, I want to stay your friend."
1:14:17 > 1:14:20That means no more sexual relationship.
1:14:20 > 1:14:23And for Francis Bacon, he knew exactly what it meant, and he was devastated.
1:14:23 > 1:14:25So Francis, in his cups...
1:14:27 > 1:14:31..told me about the relationship and those two years with Jose,
1:14:31 > 1:14:36and the fact that he'd given Jose four million US.
1:14:36 > 1:14:37and two of his paintings.
1:14:39 > 1:14:42I could read his pain, how gutted he was, his anguish.
1:14:42 > 1:14:49Well, I would say he slowly, slowly deteriorated from 1990,
1:14:49 > 1:14:51over the following two years,
1:14:51 > 1:14:55and I took him to one specialist after another
1:14:55 > 1:14:57and none of them could help him.
1:14:57 > 1:15:02He kept saying to me, "I've got to go to Madrid cos I want to see Jose".
1:15:02 > 1:15:05IN FRENCH:
1:15:53 > 1:15:56Finally, Francis Bacon, one of the most highly acclaimed
1:15:56 > 1:15:59British painters this century has died.
1:15:59 > 1:16:02The painter Francis Bacon has died at the age of 82.
1:16:02 > 1:16:04He collapsed while on holiday in Spain.
1:16:04 > 1:16:06It's thought he had a heart attack.
1:16:06 > 1:16:09He kept saying to me, "I've got to see Jose."
1:16:09 > 1:16:13I said, "Francis, whatever you do, don't go to Madrid,
1:16:13 > 1:16:16"because you're not going to survive if you do."
1:16:18 > 1:16:21I was really destroyed when I heard he had died.
1:16:21 > 1:16:24It was really very, very sad.
1:16:24 > 1:16:26But it was inevitable.
1:16:26 > 1:16:31He was reckless about his own life and other people's lives, I think.
1:16:32 > 1:16:35What caused the heart attack?
1:16:35 > 1:16:37Was it... Did Jose and Francis have a huge row?
1:16:39 > 1:16:43And Francis had the heart attack and was whisked off to hospital.
1:16:43 > 1:16:48Francis was in a Catholic hospital being attended by Catholic nuns
1:16:48 > 1:16:50and Jose was not there.
1:16:50 > 1:16:53It's despicable.
1:16:53 > 1:16:55I think that if Bacon is consistent,
1:16:55 > 1:16:58he has to be prepared to die at any time,
1:16:58 > 1:17:00to be taken advantage of at any time,
1:17:00 > 1:17:03for things not to work out at any time,
1:17:03 > 1:17:06and I think he was. He was a gambler.
1:17:06 > 1:17:08He understood that gamblers usually lose.
1:17:11 > 1:17:12The Study Of A Bull,
1:17:12 > 1:17:14the last painting Bacon completed,
1:17:14 > 1:17:15is mostly raw canvas.
1:17:15 > 1:17:17I don't think that's a question of it
1:17:17 > 1:17:19being unfinished in any sense.
1:17:19 > 1:17:23He said what he wanted to say in that top left corner of the painting.
1:17:23 > 1:17:27The bull seems to be shifting between two spaces.
1:17:27 > 1:17:29That seems like life and death.
1:17:29 > 1:17:31And the fact that he used dust as a medium,
1:17:31 > 1:17:33this is the dust to which he will return,
1:17:33 > 1:17:36as indeed he did in Madrid only a few months later.
1:17:49 > 1:17:54Whatever it is, 50 years, 75 years later,
1:17:54 > 1:17:59they seem even more important, more...
1:17:59 > 1:18:02monumental in their effect.
1:18:04 > 1:18:06He seems to have been perceived now
1:18:06 > 1:18:10almost as a kind of religious painter,
1:18:10 > 1:18:14as somebody who emanates out of
1:18:14 > 1:18:17sort of 16th-century Italian painting,
1:18:17 > 1:18:24because it has that degree of passion, martyrdom and torture,
1:18:24 > 1:18:29which is what's so wonderful about Francis's painting, to my mind.
1:18:29 > 1:18:32There's a sort of sacred quality to them.