In Camera: Francis Bacon: Photography, Film and the Practice of Painting

by Martin Harrison

"Strikingly produced and limpidly written."— Library Journal

Francis Bacon famously found inspiration in photographs, film stills, and mass-media imagery. In Camera , a bravura accomplishment of original research, reveals how these new media informed some of Bacon's most important paintings and triggered turning points in his stylistic development.

Martin Harrison, who was granted privileged and unparalleled access to unpublished material from the archives of the Bacon estate, provides a new under-standing of the thought processes and working methods of the creator of one of the most compelling bodies of work in twentieth-century art. Throughout the book, sharp analysis leads to startling insights into this complex, tortured, and hugely creative artist and into the unique iconography of his art. With the aid of over 270 superb illustrations (200 in color), including a broad range of source images and documents, the book addresses important questions about Bacon's practice and reassesses key paintings to shed new light on his life and work.

Genres: Art, Photography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Martin Harrison is a British art historian, curator, and author, internationally recognized for his expertise in photography, stained glass, and the work of painter Francis Bacon. Beginning his career in the 1960s as a photographer’s assistant at Vogue, Harrison later emerged as a leading authority on British photojournalism with his influential book Young Meteors: British Photojournalism, 1957–1965. He played a key role in reviving interest in forgotten photographers, including Lillian Bassman and Saul Leiter.
Harrison’s curatorial work spans major institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, with exhibitions held across Europe, the United States, and Mexico. A founding trustee of the English Stained Glass Museum at Ely Cathedral, he also contributed significantly to the study of Victorian stained glass and Pre-Raphaelite art.
His most celebrated contribution lies in his extensive scholarship on Francis Bacon. Since 1999, Harrison has authored several critical texts on the artist’s work and its sources, culminating in the five-volume Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné (2016), a landmark in Bacon studies. He continues to lead academic discourse as editor of the Francis Bacon Studies series, focusing on the artist’s intellectual and visual influences, particularly cinema and photography.
Across a multifaceted career, Harrison has combined visual analysis with rigorous scholarship, leaving a lasting impact on the study of modern art and visual culture.

Reviews

[Ebrahim Barzegar · Rating 2 out of 5]

انتظاراتم رو برآورده نکرد. بیشتر گزارش بود تا تحلیل. گزارش از اتفاقات و رویداهای زندگی فراسیس تقریبا میشه گفت جامع بود، اما نویسنده نمی تونه خیلی خوب این وقایع رو صورت بندی بکنه و به شکلی از نقد شسته رفته در بیاره.

[PJ Ebbrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book if you are a Bacon fan. There are a few paintings in this book that I have never seen before and definitely worth seeing. How much Bacon used photos is an educated guess as he hid his references, but there are enough hints.

[Jaison Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most detailed and well-researched book on Francis Bacon by far