24 July 2015. Francis Bacon and the Masters at UEA.

This amazing exhibition was well worth travelling to. Housed in the Sainsbury Gallery (designed by Norman Foster and remarkably similar to his Stansted Airport), the exhibition made use of works from the Hermitage, St Petersburg to illustrate the influences Bacon had quite deliberately placed himself under during his career. The exhibition opened with a self portrait by Cezanne paired with one by Bacon. The room also showed some of the books in Bacon's possession as well as photographs of his rather chaotic studio. The books included the more obvious such as on Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Kandinsky but also on the rise of Nazi Germany and on Russia.
Down the corridor, we had five Egyptian masks as well as an extraordinary head of a Roman and these were matched with two portraits of Lisa Sainsbury. She, along with her husband Robert were the philanthropists and collectors after whom the gallery was named and whose collection it houses. They were collectors and sponsors of Bacon and so the gallery has a particularly rich assembly of his work.
The second room featured the influences of Velasquez, Rembrandt and Van Gogh on Bacon. Velasquez was represented by portraits of Philip IV and Olivares and matched with two portraits by Bacon of the Pope in Velasquez's portrait as well as one of the contemporary pope. The Rembrandts were two brilliant portraits of an old man and an old woman, matched with individual portraits of Lisa and Robert Sainsbury. The room had three paintings by Van Gogh, two from his last year in Northern France and one of a Dutch peasant. Bacon's rendition of the road to Taracon was paired with a simpler portrait of Van Gogh. The second room also featured a sculpture by and Bacon works resembling its subject. It also contained an extraordinary painting that seemed to convey the presence of the spirit of Peter Lacey, Bacon's partner.
The third room contained more contemporary artists. There were portraits by Soutine, matched with portraits of the Redgraves (friends who rented Bacon space at St Ives). The portrait of Mrs Redgrave was not particularly flattering but extraordinary as a composition. The room also contained an exceptional sculpture by Rodin of a couple entwined, as well as one by Matisse seemingly almost exactly copied in a painting by Bacon. Two tryptichs by Bacon illustrated his statement that he was almost achieving the result of a sculpture but on canvas - showing three facets of the same subject. One of these tryptichs was an extraordinary piece featuring a gored bullfighter.