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4.5
It seems the number of books about British artist Francis Bacon, both biography and art monograph, grows each year, an indication of just how important this innovative and strange painter is in the spectrum of art history. IN CAMERA FRANCIS BACON: PHOTOGRAPHY, FILM AND THE PRACTIVE OF PAINTING is an erudite and fascinating work that opens previously sealed windows into the dark life and immensely controversial creativity of this daring genius.Bacon, unlike most artists of his time and even of the present, had no problems discussing the fact that he utilized the art of photography in gathering information and inspiration for his huge canvases. Bacon saw the camera as a ready resource of information from which products he then could study, cut and paste, distort and wildly mix as the impetus of his own painted creations. But the extent to which Bacon immersed himself in the images he collected and deposited in the ungainly mess of his studio at 7 Reece Mews is now brought to light by author Martin Harrison.Harrison not only understands photography's history and impact, he also understands painting. He wisely interviewed Bacon's last lover and inheritor of Bacon's estate until his death, John Edwards, and through Edwards' auspices Harrison gained access to many of the never before seen images that grace this book. Here are sketches, manipulated and notated photographs, photographic images of some of Bacon's destroyed canvases and plates of drawings and paintings not included elsewhere, making this volume of information invaluable to the Bacon devotees, no matter the number of volumes on their library shelves!Harrison writes with the style of the scholar he is and at times the writing itself is rather dry and academic. But if the reader perseveres these thick passages of documentation, the reward is new knowledge of just how Bacon utilized photos, newsprint snaps, movies, and all manner of the camera's output to gain the spark of brilliance that resulted in his amazing output. The book is on the finest paper and is filled with superb reproductions of the photographic stimuli and the resultant paintings. This is an invaluable volume for the study of Bacon's art. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, January 06
