THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Roberta Smith
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| Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953 |
NEW YORK---
Francis Bacon is an artist for our time. You may love or hate his work, which is still vigorously polarizing after all these years. But more than that of any other artist who emerged at the end of World War II, his work tells us about the strengths and weaknesses of the moment. The stately if cursory survey of Bacon’s paintings that opened Wednesday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art suggests a more lasting pertinence: Bacon’s depiction of the love that until a few decades ago dared not say its name, much less demand the right to marry. Bacon convincingly painted men having sex and sometimes making love. Whether this makes him a great painter, it certainly secures him a place in the history of both painting and art. He emphatically turned the male gaze toward males. [
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“
Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective” continues through Aug. 16 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org
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| Francis Bacon: a Centenary Retrospective The exhibition, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, features a triptych inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem "Sweeney Agonistes." The show originated at the Tate Britain last fall. Credit Estate of Francis Bacon/ARS, New York; DACS, London, via Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution |
