Photo By Gail

Three Studies for Portrait of Lucien Freud (1965) shows the artistic dialogue between artists Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. While their visual styles differed, both were interested in the human figure and sat for each other on multiple occasions. Bacon painted Freud 14 times from 1964 to 1971, working from photographs rather than real life.

Intimate knowledge of the sitter was also essential. ‘What I want to do  is distort the thing far beyond the appearance, but in the distortion to bring it back to a recording of the appearance,’ Bacon said. His portraits powerfully convey the complexities of the human psyche.

Photographed in the Tate Modern in London