Reuters North American News Service, January 7th, 2008
LONDON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - A triptych by Irish-born artist
Francis Bacon, a response to the suicide of his lover George
Dyer, is expected to fetch around 25 million pounds ($50
million) when it is sold next month, Christie's said on Monday.
The work, called "Triptych 1974-77", could challenge the
current record for the artist which stands at 26.6 million
pounds ($52.7 million) for "Study from Innocent X, 1962" sold by
Sotheby's in New York in May, 2007.
The triptych will go under the hammer in London on Feb. 6.
"Painted just in time for his 1974 show at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York as a tribute to George Dyer, 'Triptych
1974-77' is the most important triptych by Francis Bacon to
appear ever at auction," said Pilar Ordovas, head of postwar and
contemporary art at Christie's in London.
The painting features two images of a figure writhing on a
beach under dark umbrellas, while the third, central part shows
a figure overlooked by two sinister faces.
Dyer committed suicide in 1971 in a Paris hotel room that he
and the artist were sharing.
Christie's goes head to head with rival Sotheby's, which is
offering Bacon's "Study of a Nude with Figure in a Mirror" on
Feb. 27. The work is estimated at 18-25 million pounds.
The private collector selling the triptych will be hoping to
cash in on the booming market for Bacon, an artist best known
for his contorted and often horrific human forms.
In November, 2006, a Bacon painting fetched a then record
$15 million, eclipsed by a sale in February, 2007 when a papal
portrait was sold for over $27 million. That total was nearly
doubled at the Sotheby's New York sale in May last year.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
