ROY DE MAISTRE

Dimitri Mitrinoviæ
Trustees of the New Atlantis Foundation
Glady MacDermot; thence by descent
Private collection, Switzerland

Roy de Maistre: A restrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings 1917-1960, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, May-June 1960, cat. 40

Neville Wallis, 'In the Humanist Tradition', The Observer, 15 May 1960, p. 20 (illus.)
Daniel Farson, The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon, Century, London, 1993, p. 28 and illus.
Heather Johnson, Roy de Maistre: The English Years 1930-1968, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995, p. 26

This work is presented in what appears to be the original gold painted timber frame. The work is framed under glass and has not been viewed out of its frame. Stable drying cracks appear throughout the sitters hair and similiar cracks appear in the sitters shirt.
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Soon after moving to London in 1930, de Maistre began a relationship with Francis Bacon. Possibly a lover but certainly a good friend and benevolent father figure, de Maistre provided the technical advice and support which enabled bacon to make the transition from interior decorator to painter.

He was also a social and professional mentor; at de Maistre's Eccleston Street studio salon Bacon met people like the artists Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, the young writer Patrick White and the expatriate Australian collector and art dealer Douglas Cooper, as well as patrons such as R.A. Butler and Gladys MacDermot, who commissioned Bacon to entirely redesign her Bloomsbury apartment.

De Maistre painted his young friend's portrait in 1930, and included the work in the three-man exhibtion – de Maistre paintings, Bacon pictures and rugs and pastels by Jean Shepeard – held in Bacon's studio in 1930. The present work is dated to some years later and shows Bacon in his mid 20s, looking, as de Maistre put it, 'like a somewhat dubious choirboy'.

It is indeed a strange, tense, enigmatic portrait of the young artist. Posed in three quarter profile in a strongly lit, shallow space in front of a blood-red curtain, Bacon's oddly unexpressive, even doll-like face is at once abstracted and alert, while his clasped hands seem to convey both formality and anxiety. In addition to the familiar cowlick quiff and the piercing blue eyes, the painting also shows carefully-drawn eyebrows and bright red lips. The young Bacon was well known amongst members of London's gay subculture for his cosmetic display. Michael Peppiat records that 'shortly after he had gained some recognition as an artist, he walked into a London bar where a well known homosexual wit was sitting. When their gazes met, the wit said loudly: "as for her, when I knew her, she was more famous for the paint that she put on her face than the paint she put on canvas"'  Later, Patrick White was to recall Bacon's 'beautiful pansy-shaped face, sometimes with too much lipstick on it,'  while 'a young relative of de Maistre remembers meeting Francis and wondering whether she should tell him he must have sucked his paintbrush and got red paint all over his mouth.'

Portrait of Francis Bacon is an affectionate and revealing image of the celebrated British artist at the start of his career, and an important memento of his constructive relationship with the older and wiser Australian.

1.  Daniel Farson, The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon, Century, London, 1993, p. 28
2.  Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1996, p. 56
3.  Patrick White, Flaws in the Glass: a self-portrait, Jonathan Cape, London, 1983, p. 62
4.    Peppiatt, op. cit., p. 56

We are most grateful to Heather Johnson, Andrew Brighton and Elizabeth Gertsakis for their assistance in cataloguing this work.