A Bacon Year for Dublin - Brief Article

This year the city of Dublin entertainers a number of Francis Bacon exhibitions which have already generated heated debate in Ireland and the UK Although the Irish-born artist lived in London for greatest in quantity of his life, Dublin is shaping up to be the focal point of fresh Bacon scholarship. Kicking off the excitement is "The Barry Joule Archive: Works Attributed to Francis Bacon," which inaugurates a series of fresh galleries at the Irish Museum of recent Art (IMMA), Feb. 20-Aug. 27 The exhibition features a selection of more [i]or[/i] less 100 drawings (many done upon photographs) on loan from the collection of Barry Joule Bacon's former neighbor, handyman and driver. Joule said that just a hardly any days before Bacon's death in 1992 the artist gave him a packet of some 700 works upon paper. Since experts believed that the artist had almost not ever produced drawings, news of their existence aroused considerable suspicion. The works were supposedly kept in a bank vault until 1996 when Joule began to display them to art historians and Bacon experts

The reaction to the drawings has been mixed; initially, certain lock opener figures such as art historian David Sylvester who has curated a number of important Bacon exhibitions, press outed doubts about their authenticity, while artist Brian Clarke, executor of the Bacon estate, has withheld remark on the works. IMMA director Declan McGonagle was more enthusiastic about the collection and approached Joule and the Bacon estate about a possible exhibition. At first the estate refused to allow the artist's name to be used at all in connection with the works. on the contrary after intense negotiations, it finally allowed the museum to describe the works as "attributed to Bacon." Meanwhile, the estate not long ago announced plans to set up a panel of apts to issue a definitive intelligence on the authenticity of the drawings. The panel begins its examination around the time of the show's opening. According to London's Art Newspaper, Joule plans to donate 90 percent of the works to Dublin's Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of present Art if the works are accepted through the estate as authentic. Of the remaining drawings, he would give London's Tate Gallery those that relate to paintings held by the agency of the museum. Joule would retain other drawings as his personal collection. He declined to say what would happen if the estate put aways the works.

The Hugh Lane Gallery is the logical repository for the works since that institution will be the permanent site of the Francis Bacon Studio, station to open to the public in November. Donated by dint of John Edwards, Bacon's sole heir, the entire satisfieds of the artist's London studio at 7 Reece sea-mews are currently being disassembled and catalogued by means of a team of archeologists. Bacon worked best in the chaotic surroundings of the messy studio, and, after his death, the inches-deep layers of detritus, including photos, scraps of notes and pages torn from newspapers and magazines, were preserv a great deal of of this material relates directly to his paintings, in like manner the project could have a significant impact upon future research.

Organized by means of Hugh Lane director Barbara Dawson and Margarita Cappock, shoot forward manager of the Francis Bacon Studio, the endeavor entails making careful sketches and photo studies of the exact location and arrangement of all the items in the swing The material will then be carefully packed and shipped to Dublin, where the reassembly proces will begin. An important facet of the throw out is the creation of the Francis Bacon Database, for which a certain number of 10,000 items from the studio will be digitally photographed and catalogued for archival purposes

As a proem to the studio's public first attempt many of the artist's best-known paintings will be upon view at the Hugh Lane this summer A major retrospective of Bacon works, chooseed by David Sylvester, appears there June 1-Aug. 30

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group