Francis Bacon was born in Dublin in 1909. He was arguably one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. His is an art in which tradition and modernity and drawn together. Although there is a strong sense of remoteness in his disturbing faces and figures, Bacon was very close, personally, to the majority of his sitters. Even so, much of Bacon's work was done from photographs as if he had no choice but to distance himself from his subjects in order to reach his creative goals. When Bacon did strive to paint from life - as was the case with his portraits of Lisa Sainsbury - the struggle was evident and overwhelming. (Sainsbury sat for him in this manner every week for over a year. And of the eight portraits completed during this time only three remain. Bacon having destroyed the others). Francis Bacon died in Madrid in 1992.

Above: Seated Woman, Francis Bacon, 1961