F ew artists have probed the human psyche with as much ferocity and honesty as Francis Bacon. His self-portraits are not just images—they are psychological arenas, spaces where identity, mortality, and emotion collide. Each face becomes a battleground: smudged eyes, collapsing jaws, twisted forms that reveal the raw, flickering truth of existence. From anguish and grief to moments of luminous intensity, Bacon’s canvases capture the force of a mind confronting itself.
Bacon’s approach to self-portraiture echoes the greats who came before him—Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Velázquez—but with a modern edge that is unmistakably his own. These paintings are a meditation on impermanence, a dance between light and shadow where the self is constantly interrogated, never fully known, and always evolving. They remain some of the most inventive and psychologically revealing works of the twentieth century, challenging viewers to engage not just with the image, but with the human experience behind it. Francis Bacon’s striking Self-Portrait is on offer as one of the works in the Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection, part of the Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction taking place at Replica Shoes ’s London on 4 March.
