Michael Peppiatt

Harry Borden Photographer/Artist

Biography

Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (1997; revised edition 2008)

Alberto Giacometti in Paris (2023)

Memoirs

Francis Bacon In Your Blood (2015)

The Existential Englishman (2018)

Selected Essays

Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait (2008; revised edition 2021)

Artists’ Lives (2023)

Art History

Modern Art In Britain (1964)

Imagination’s Chamber: Artists and Their Studios (1983)

In Giacometti’s Studio (2010)

Art Plural: Voices of Contemporary Art (2014)

The Making of Modern Art (2021)

Auerbach/Bevan: What Is a Head? (2022)

Francis Bacon: A Self-Portrait in Words: Statements, Letters and Studio Notes. Edited and Introduced by Michael Peppiatt (2023)

Interviews

Interviews with Artists [1966-2012] (2010; new edition 2023?)

‘Only Too Much Is Enough’: Francis Bacon in his Own Words (2022)

Plays

Bacon/Giacometti: A Dialogue (2021)

Selected Exhibition Catalogues

Raymond Mason (1982)

The School of London (1987)

L’Ecole de Londres: De Bacon à Bevan (1998)

Zoran Music (2001)

Alberto Giacometti in Post-War Paris (2001)

Aristide Maillol (2002)

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gaston Chaissac, Jean Dubuffet, Joaquin Torres-Garcia (2003)

Christian Schad and the Neue Sachlichkeit [ed. with Jill Lloyd] (2003)

Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art (2003)

Sean Scully (2004)

Francis Bacon: The Sacred and Profane (2004)

Antonio Tàpies (2005)

Francis Bacon in the 1950s (2006)

Van Gogh and Expressionism [ed. with Jill Lloyd] (2007)

Caravaggio/Bacon (2009)

Peter Blake (2009)

In Giacometti’s Studio (2010)

Dado: Venice Biennale (2010)

Giacometti: An Intimate Portrait (2010)

Nicolas de Staël (2013)

Bacon/Giacometti (2018)

Avigdor Arikha (2020)

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast (2022)

Translations

Francis Bacon: l’art de l’impossible [trans. with Michel Leiris] (1976)

Selected Books in French:

Entretiens avec Francis Bacon, L’Echoppe, Paris, 1998

Francis Bacon à l’atelier, L’Echoppe, Paris,1999

Espace et Lumière (Sean Scully et Richard Meier), L’Echoppe, Paris, 1999

Zoran Music, Entretiens 1988-1998, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2000

L’Ecole de Londres, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2002

Alberto Giacometti, Oeuvres de la maturité, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne, 2002

Dans l’atelier de Giacometti, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2002

Van Gogh, ombres et lumières, Centre national de documentation pédagogique, Paris, 2002

Francis Bacon: Anatomie d’une énigme, Flammarion (Grandes biographies), Paris, 2003

Rencontre avec Pierre Soulages, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2003

Le regard de Bacon, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2003

Francis Bacon: le sacré et le profane, Musée Maillol, Paris, 2004

Sean Scully, Galerie Lelong, Paris, 2004

L’amitié Leiris Bacon: Une étrange fascination, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2006

L’Ecole de Londres, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2006

Les Dilemmes de Jean Dubuffet, Paris, L’Echoppe. Paris, 2006

Peter Blake, Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, 2009

Lucian Freud, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2010

Jean Dubuffet/James Fitzsimmons: Correspondance 1956-64, 2011

Un après-midi chez Henry Moore, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2013

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rencontres, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2014

Claes Oldenburg, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2017

David Hockney, Souvenirs, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2017

Bacon/Giacometti : Une Rencontre à Londres, L’Echoppe, Paris, 2019

Bacon et Giacometti en parallèle, L’Echoppe, 2019

Francis Bacon, Flammarion (Grandes Biographies), Paris, nouvelle édition, 2019

Conversations avec Adrian Ghenie, L’Echoppe, 2021

Selected Exhibition Catalogues in French:

Denise Esteban: entre ciel et mer, Maison de la Culture, Bourges, 1974

Dado: noir sur blanc, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, 1975

Pierre Soulages: Galerie Jade, Colmar, 1991

Louis le Brocquy: Images de Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, 1979

Zoran Music: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1995

Lucian Freud: L’Oeuvre Gravé, Galerie Berggruen, Paris, 1990

Raymond Mason, Musée Maillol, Paris, 2000

L’Ecole de Londres, Musée Maillol, Paris, 1998

Aristide Maillol, introduction du catalogue suivie d’un entretien avec Dina Vierny, IVAM, Valencia, 2002

Alberto Giacometti dans le Paris d’après-guerre, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne, 2002.

Zoran Music, préface et entretiens, Galerie Krugier-Ditesheim, Genève, 2002

Christian Schad, Musée Maillol, Paris, 2002

Francis Bacon: Le sacré et le profane, Musée Maillol, Paris, 2003

Le feu sous la cendre, Galerie Jan Krugier, Genève, 2003

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gaston Chaissac, Jean Dubuffet, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Galerie Navarra, Paris, 2003

Sean Scully, Galerie Lelong, Paris, 2004

Dado : Les Elégies Zorzi, Palazzo Zorzi, Biennale de Venise, Venise, 2009

Les Giacometti: Giovanni, Alberto, Diego, Fondation pour l’écrit, Genève, 2009

Marc Desgrandschamps, Galerie Lelong, Paris, 2016

Francis Bacon et Shakespeare, ‘Bacon en toutes lettres’, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019

In Progress:

Faces in the Crowd: Portraits of Artists and Writers

Bacon/Picasso (An Exhibition)

Michael is the guest curator of the Royal Academy of Arts’ ‘Francis Bacon: Man and Beast’, the first exhibition to chart the development of Bacon’s work through the lens of his fascination with animals and its impact on his treatment of the human figure. It will also be the first time all of Bacon’s ‘bullfight’ paintings have been exhibited together and the first time Bacon’s final painting Study of a Bull has gone on show in the UK.

In the lead essay to the exhibition catalogue, Michael defines the main concept underlying this challenging new exhibition:

“What Bacon learnt about existence as a child came above all from what he learnt about animals: how they fought, how they mated, how they died.”

For full details and to order tickets, visit the Royal Academy page here.

Initial coverage of the show has appeared in The Guardian, The Art Newspaper, The Evening Standard and Prospect Magazine.

Eris Press have released ‘Dialogue’ for the first time in its original version. Michael wrote the ‘Bacon/Giacometti’ Dialogue while he was co-curating an exhibition of the same title at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland. It has since been published in French by L’Echoppe in Paris and put on as a play by Christie’s in London.

For more details and to order a signed copy, visit their site here, or read on for an extract:

GIACOMETTI Is it true, Francis, that when you raise your glass, you always say, “Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends”?

BACON That’s just an old Edwardian toast people used to use. But since I spend so much of my life drifting from bar to bar and person to person, I do say it from time to time. It seems to sum up the situation so clearly. And after all, Alberto, what else is there to do in life but try to sum the situation up clearly?

GIACOMETTI Yes, of course. That’s the only point of anything, and certainly the only point of art, no? I think the aim is to create a kind of residue of reality, not to reproduce reality as such, which is impossible, but to create a reality of equal intensity—its essence, if you like. It’s also a way of trying to give existence some form of permanence. Of course you never achieve that. However much you try, you always fail, time after time. And you’re bound to fail, because that intensity is always out of your reach. You might think, every now and then, that you’ve got a little closer, so you keep on trying. And here’s the contradiction: nothing would be worse than succeeding, because if you did there’d be nothing left to do!

They laugh.

Bacon tops up Giacometti’s glass.

GIACOMETTI I love being in London. I don’t know why I don’t come over more often, and not just to hang a big show like the one at the Tate or to go and look at those fantastic early Egyptian paintings you have at the British Museum. I am in awe of them because they are so life-like and real. And London is so completely different from Paris. Everything looks different, even the trees in the parks. And the people! They seem to inhabit a different kind of space as they queue so calmly for the bus or make their way along the street. And then these secret little bars and clubs you’ve taken me to! It’s like a different planet.

BACON It’s terribly nice of you to say that, Alberto, but I always think Paris is so much more beautiful and stimulating than London. I mean, it often feels terribly provincial and dreary here, and there’s really not much happening in the arts. Not much happening in anything, come to that. I remember I always used to long to see the latest issues of Cahiers d’Art and those kinds of magazines simply to find out what was happening in Paris. What you were doing, what Picasso was doing…

GIACOMETTI Well, there’s your own work, Francis, which I find very exciting and inventive. I went to your gallery yesterday to see the new portraits you’ve done of your friends, and I have to say that, next to your paintings, which radiate vitality, my things at the Tate will look as though they’d been done by an old spinster!

BACON Alberto, nothing could give me greater pleasure than to hear you—who I consider to be the greatest living artist—say that about my work. I’m hugely, deeply touched. I’ve admired everything you do and your whole attitude towards life and art from the beginning. It’s not just what you’ve created, but the way you live. I’ve always been struck by those photos of you in your studio with all its marvellous mess strewn over the floor. I live in that way too, because I find having all that chaos around you stimulates ideas as you work. I’ve got so many photos and things piled up under foot that I think of it as my “compost heap”, and every time I walk up to the canvas I kick new images up and they act like triggers for ideas while I’m painting. And all the painters I see regularly in London, like Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, look up to you as the great figurative artist of our times. You’ve been a model for us all, particularly now that the art world is only interested in abstract art.

GIACOMETTI Me? A model? I’m no model!

BACON Do you remember, before Isabel introduced us, I saw you sitting at the Flore in Saint-Germain, it must have been in the early Fifties, and I felt I had to come over and say that for me you were the greatest living sculptor and draughtsman of our times.

GIACOMETTI And what did I say?

BACON “What terrible times we must be living in!”

They laugh.

Bacon signals for another bottle of Krug, while Giacometti lights yet another cigarette.

Thames and Hudson have published a new, revised edition of Michael’s collection of essays: ‘Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait’.

The book is available from their website and from most booksellers including Amazon.

Below you will find an exclusive preview of his Preface to the Revised Edition:

‘I write in order to have written,’ the Spanish poet and noted wit, Jaime Gil de Biedma, said once in an interview. I think that provides as fundamental and irreducible a definition of the need to write as one could find, and I have thought about it often, because if one spends one’s life in a single, obsessive quest one constantly seeks to explain, if only to oneself, the impulse underlying it. I also enjoy maxims, aphorisms, bons mots in themselves – as indeed did Francis Bacon, who in conversation was constantly searching for the killer phrase, the last word, on art and life.

If I were asked to define my main and most absorbing activity, however, I would formulate the answer differently and say: ‘I write in order to rewrite.’ That makes for a less lapidary statement, but certainly for me and I suspect for many writers it is truer and more to the point. The first draft of whatever one writes is usually the most demanding and debilitating part of the process. It usually constitutes the darkest moments of a writing life when one despairs of whatever talent one thought one might have, and wonders whether one will ever write anything worth reading again. Then, if that draft survives for a day or two, one might overcome despair and go back to it, move it around, cut and paste it, and eventually decide that it is not quite as vacuous and clumsy as it first seemed: one or two passages could be worked on, possibly even improved. From the original swamp of words, a vague shape begins to emerge. Then, at last, an apposite phrase arises, bringing a paragraph into perspective, which in turn gives hope to the whole undertaking. The rewriting – the real writing and the real pleasure of writing – begins.

Not only does the process of rewriting go on, it never stops. Even when a book has been scrupulously edited by the author and numerous other hands, the obsessive writer will continue to see things that could be improved on long after publication. Accordingly, when I was asked to come up with a revised, updated version of ‘Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait’, I grasped the invitation with both hands. In the dozen years since the original edition came out, much has changed. Bacon scholarship has grown vertiginously, and in between times the author has written new, arguably better texts on various aspects of the artist. Here was the opportunity not only to improve yet again on texts long enshrined but also to add more recent reflections.

In this brave, new venture, we have updated and emended all the essays while adding four more recent texts as well as short commentaries on five individual paintings. Of the former, ‘Bacon and Picasso’ came out of a review of an exhibition at the Musée Picasso, and ‘Bacon and Shakespeare’ was written for the catalogue of ‘Francis Bacon en toutes lettres’ (‘Francis Bacon: Books and Painting’), the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2019-20 that explored the literary influences on Bacon’s imagination. ‘Francis Bacon in Paris’ is a more biographical piece based on my memories of the artist’s frequent stays in the city, while ‘Reflections on Francis Bacon’s Late Work’ began life as an analysis of a late triptych before broadening out to address Bacon’s late period as a whole.

Even the three interviews with Bacon have been updated (as I explain in the introductory note to the first interview), since I listened to them all again and reinstated several remarks that I deemed inconsequential at the time of their first publication. It is now almost sixty years since that first interview took place, and it seems most likely that this revised version of my essays on Bacon will be the definitive one. Yet the moment I say that, a cherished image swims into view: Pierre Bonnard sneaking back into a museum and surreptitiously touching up a painting of his that had been hanging on the wall for years…

Michael has just curated an exhibition of works by Frank Auerbach and Tony Bevan entitled “What is a Head?” at Ben Brown Fine Arts London. The show will run from December 2020 – February 2021.

Foreword by Michael Peppiatt

What, indeed, is a head? For us, surely, it’s as big as the world, as existence itself, and just as unknowable. It contains everything we are and everything we can ever know, including our own limits, because whatever we do we can never go beyond its bounds. The head is all, the centre of the universe, as well as in the long term its circumference. Small wonder, then, that heads have preoccupied artists from the very beginning of recorded time and still intrigue them, re-emerging, Hydra-like, as the central symbol of humanity.

The head also serves as a mirror of the whole history of art: its significance and the way it is represented have changed constantly over the ages. One wonders what in fact, after the combined ingenuity of centuries, is left in the subject for contemporary artists to explore, since the head was so radically reinvented during the last century that at one point it vanished altogether into the white heat of abstraction. Hence it is for good reason that, when contemplating the heads of Frank Auerbach and Tony Bevan, you are struck by a sense of resurrection: of elements destroyed, recovered from the past and reintroduced into the picture plane. A half-forgotten language has been retrieved, its subtle syntax, its infinite moods and accents brought back into play.

Bevan and Auerbach are a generation apart, and beyond their shared fascination for all the conceptual and painterly possibilities of reinventing heads, there is as much to differentiate them as to bring them together. In Auerbach, who grew up during the war, one experiences palpable layers of excavation: the buried image rising through stratas of paint to resume its fragmented presence, a memory disinterred that might fade again into the flurry of brushstrokes as swiftly as Hamlet’s ghost. Bevan’s ‘Heads’ are also reconstructions, of a different order.

More linear than painterly in his practice, Bevan approaches the head through its working parts, its muscles and sinews, exploring its inner structure as an unknown space, an experimental architecture that defies all known rules.

For both artists, the head is perceived as the prime vessel of human life, the nerve centre and brain box that controls us and everything we do, not least when it is rife with contradiction and patently out of control, as we, the heirs to a century of psychoanalysis, are ready to acknowledge. That is its greatest fascination, of course, the constant warring it contains – as in a domed boxing-ring – of impulse and restraint, instinct and order, spontaneity and discipline. In Auerbach, it reaches points of incandescence, sparks of a long struggle lapsing into melancholy exhaustion, with the fire burnt indelibly into the muddied colour. A violence of opposites courses through Bevan’s heads as well, black outlines on a hot ground of red, orange or yellow, but the violence is latent, suppressed, and all the more threatening. What has already ravaged Auerbach’s universe like the passage of time is still kept at bay in Bevan’s, where the fractures hint at the explosive strain.

Are two heads better than one? Surely, when they are as searching and perceptive, as committed to revealing the multiplicity and complexity of ourselves in paint as Auerbach and Bevan’s have proved to be. Looking into the ‘Head’ of one reveals more about the ‘Head’ of the other than one might have conceivably imagined. This double vision highlights the differences and similarities inherent in the same subject, setting up a dialogue not only between generations but within painting’s renewed insights into mind and identity.

For more details, visit Ben Brown Fine Arts here.