- 142
Louis le Brocquy, H.R.H.A. b.1916
Description
- Louis le Brocquy, H.R.H.A.
- image of francis bacon
- signed and dated l.r.: LOUIS LE BROCQUY 1981
- watercolour and coloured chalks
- 46 by 40.5cm.; 18½ by 16in.
Catalogue Note
Although le Brocquy first met Bacon in London in the 1950s, it was not until 1979 that he created his first images of the artist. His series of Portrait Heads have mostly included images of characters that he did not know personally and W.B.Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Bacon are among the exceptions. Bacon even wrote the introduction to his friend’s 1966 retrospective at the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and aptly observed, ‘…le Brocquy belongs to a category of artists who have always existed – obsessed by figuration outside and on the other side of illustration – who are aware of the vast and potent possibilities of inventing ways by which fact and appearance can be reconjugated’.
Bacon initially wrote to le Brocquy that he was ‘…very flattered you have included me amongst your portraits’ (Bacon quoted in Louis le Brocquy Portrait Heads, exh.cat., National Gallery of Ireland, 4 November 2006 - 14 January 2007, p.64) however, on being confronted with le Brocquy’s own probing images of him, remained resolutely silent, perhaps unable to come to terms with the piercing quality of his own portrait which is somewhat ironic in respect of the psychoanalytical nature of his own oeuvre.