Roy de Maistre

The artist
The late Francis Elek, London; purchased from the above; thence by descent

Recent paintings by Roi de Mestre [sic], drawings and pastels by Jean Shepeard, paintings and rugs by Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon's studio (17 Queensberry Mews West), London, 4-22 November 1930, cat. 7 (as 'Interior')

Heather Johnson, Roy de Maistre: the English years 1930-1968, Sydney: Craftsman House, 1995, pp. 20 (illus. pl. 2), 21, 22, 28 
Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: anatomy of an enigma, London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1996, p. 51
John Rothenstein and Ronald Alley, Francis Bacon, London: Thames & Hudson, 1964, (illus., un-numbered plate)
John Russell, Francis Bacon (rev. ed.), London: Thames & Hudson, 1993, p. 16
Richard Shone, 'Francis Bacon in 1930: an early exhibition rediscovered', The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXXVIII, no. 1117, April 1996, pp. 254, 255
Andrew Sinclair, Francis Bacon: his life and violent times, New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1993, illus. plate 25

This work has not been lined and has the original stretcher. There are two small canvas patches that appear in the lower right hand corner to the reverse of the canvas. There are four small areas of retouching in the lower section of the canvas (in the glass table, rug and above the signature) approximately 1.5cm each in length - confirmed by UV inspection.
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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.

The present work dates from this very earliest moment in the two men's relationship, when Bacon was still very much the designer. Fashionable to a fault, Bacon at this time was making severe glass and tubular-steel tables and chairs and synthetic-cubist screens and woven floor rugs. This art deco aesthetic chimed with de Maistre's own taste for geometric flat pattern, and he responded with strikingly moderne but 'topographically precise'¹ views of Bacon's studio: Interior (1930, Manchester City Art Gallery) and the present work.

De Maistre's biographer Heather Johnson has noted that 'the ultra moderne furniture and the theatrical appearance of the high and unusual space of the stairway ... resembles the uncluttered simplicity and inventive use of space in the work not only of continental European architects and designers and which was reflected by film makers and photographers but also of the American, Richard Neutra's Health House, Los Angeles, 1928 ... While in keeping with modern continental design, Bacon's interiors were far ahead of those of his own countrymen. Still seeing himself as a modern painter, de Maistre seems to have been associating himself with the most modern and avant-garde of interiors. The clear depiction of Francis Bacon's signature on the rug, not far from his own signature on the painting, links the two names – the modern painter and the modern designer.'²

This linkage was also proprietorial. Within his own rather limited means, de Maistre also seems to have supported his young protégé: he certainly owned the folding screen of standing figures which is visible on the staircase of Francis Bacon's Queensberry Mews studio, as well as a high-backed, high-armed sofa 'often commented on by visitors to [his] studio as being the most uncomfortable thing they ever sat on.'³  

From the collection of de Maistre's close friend Francis Elek, the present work is a painting of considerable historical importance.

1.  Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: anatomy of an enigma, London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1996, p. 51
2.  Heather Johnson, Roy de Maistre: the English years 1930-1968, Sydney: Craftsman House, 1995, p. 22
3.  ibid., p. 28