Francis Bacon

Collection of the artist
Paul Danquah (acquired directly from the artist circa 1958)
Private Collection, United Kingdom (acquired in 2000)
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Pacific Heights Gallery, San Francisco
Private Collection
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

New York, Gagosian Gallery, Isabel and Other Intimate Strangers: Portraits by Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, 2008, p. 171, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: There are five horizontal bands of intermittent cracking across the painting which in the thicker areas of impasto to the face have resulted in networks of cracquelure, some of which is visible in the catalogue illustration. Examination under ultraviolet light shows that these have been restored. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals several other spot retouchings scattered throughout the background and a vertical line to the right of the face. The canvas has been strip lined and the stretcher is new.
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“They were all done not as a commission but as an act of friendship.”

Lisa Sainsbury cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Norwich, University of East Anglia, Trapping Appearance- Portraits by Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, 1996, p. 30.


One of four surviving works from an original series of eight studies depicting Lisa Sainsbury, the present work offers a rare account of a subject privileged enough to sit for the artist. Untitled (Head of a Woman – Lisa Sainsbury)1955-57, captures wonderfully the formative features of Francis Bacon’s analysis of the human head and demonstrates an early exploration of the single head portrait that was to become, as John Russell notes, "the scene of some of Bacon's most ferocious investigations" (John Russell, Francis Bacon, London 1993, p. 99).

Executed in the embryonic stages of his life-long investigation to visually explain the variations of the human condition through pictorial representation, Head Untitled (Head of a Woman – Lisa Sainsbury) superbly encapsulates the essence of the sitter. Here, Bacon displays an array of textures and techniques that, much like Giacometti’s sculptures of women, coalesce the head of someone he knew “with that of an Egyptian sculpture in all its formal rigour and monumental grandeur” (David Sylvester, Looking Back at Francis Bacon, London 2000, p.203). Lisa’s delicate features are built up with layers of paint; smeared strokes of pink and mauve contrast against a rich black ground that magnifies the presence of the figure. The treatment of the mouth -an area of intense scrutiny for Bacon- radiates serenity, her plump rose lips exuding none of the violence of the gaping mouths that are present in his earlier Head series, and suggests a warm assessment of the sitter by the artist. 

Among the first collectors of Bacon’s work, Lisa Sainsbury and her husband Robert were first introduced to Bacon at a party by Erica Brausen of the Hanover Gallery. The Sainsburys, who had already amassed an eclectic collection, including works of Pre-Colombian, African, Japanese and Oceanic art, immediately became admirers, and began to purchase a number of paintings. They accumulated a collection, later donated to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, of thirteen works, including: Sketch for Portrait of Lisa 1955, Portrait of Lisa 1956 and Portrait of Lisa 1957 that provides an outstanding example of Bacon’s corpus of work from the 1950’s.

Lisa Sainsbury had a deep respect for Bacon’s artistic practice and the collaboration with Bacon began after she commissioned him to paint her husband Robert. By this time, Bacon had moved from his studio in Cromwell Place and, after several years of wandering from lodging to lodging, had moved to a flat on Prince of Wales Drive that belonged Paul Danquah and Peter Pollock. It was here, during the period of 1955-1957, that Lisa sat for Bacon every week, ceasing only when he was abroad in Tangier. During this pivotal time Bacon worked intensely, making a concerted effort to work directly from life. Indeed such was Bacon’s affection for Lisa that, as Daniel Farson recalls, "For once, Francis encouraged them to sit for him: Lisa for several pictures" (Daniel Farson, The Guilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon, London 1993, p. 90)  This practice marked a stark, albeit brief, departure from the artist’s preferred method of working solely from commissioned photographs of friends and lovers that acted as a visual aide in which he could project their presence onto the canvas, and elevates the present work’s unique significance within Bacon’s entire oeuvre.  Bacon developed a total of eight studies but owing to his dissatisfaction with his work only four studies, including the present, survive.  As Lisa Sainsbury recalls in an interview with David Sylvester, “I would sit and then I might come back two or three times and suddenly there was a message saying it was gone…He worked at them again and destroyed them but the final one was done very quickly indeed.” (David Sylvester in: Exhibition Catalogue, Norwich, University of East Anglia, Trapping Appearance- Portraits by Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, 1996, p. 30).

Bacon, as Christoph Heinrich notes, “…sets out to convey the specific energy of very different individuals through painting" (Exhibition Catalogue, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Bacon, 2008, p. 55). Where many of Bacon’s portraits are fraught with intense struggles of emotion, Untitled (Head of a Woman – Lisa Sainsbury) demonstrates a calmness that serves both as a testament to the valued connection that resonated between the pair, and seamlessly displays Bacon’s ability to capture the spirit of a sitter who, in the case of Lisa Sainsbury, was to remain a constant source of support throughout his career.