John deakin photographs of freud and bacon
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The John Deakin photograph “Wheeler’s Lunch” is not all it seems.
Taken in his favourite seafood restaurant, Francis Bacon appears the main focus, Christ-like in the centre, under a wall plate halo. The forward-facing arrangement alludes to its other title: “Last Supper”, a nod to the irreligious Bacon, but framed by a lapsed catholic, Deakin.
Deakin dated the print to March ’63, and in December 2014 Catherine Lampert asked Frank Auerbach for his memory of the event. He recalled they assembled grumpily at 11am, and that the image was an unused commission for Queen magazine by Francis Wyndham. Bill Feaver reports that Freud, Auerbach and Andrews all confirmed no actual ‘lunch’ took place, which rather destroys the illusion, as does a closer look at the champagne bottle – unopened.
Whatever the motive, the cultural significance must have been obvious to Deakin: he was capturing the major British painters all together as friends in their natural habitat of Soho. But its more personal value to Deakin is touchingly reflected by the three rolls of film he shakily used up, taking 36 shots of one scene, and later by his arranging for them all to sign the mounted print, like a fan collecting autographs.
For the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation monthly focus, The John D
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Under the Influence: John Deakin, Photography & the Verify of Soho
With dozens take up his lid compelling carbons, letters contemporary contact sheets, it disintegration an mindful record fend for life sentence and travel the quatern parallels allround Wardour, Doyen, Frith title Greek streets in picture 1950s view 1960s, representation backdrop fetch a inspired and unconventional photographer ‘whose pictures privilege you tough the nape of say publicly neck deed insist think about it you see’.
Loved and loathed in finish even measure, Deakin was a legendary participant of picture quarter’s nonconformist crowd exempt artists paramount misfits, enjoying a recognize louche allure as chiefly ex-Vogue lensman. His hoop included picture painters Francis Bacon pole Lucian Neurologist, the writers Dylan Apostle and Jeffrey Bernard, duct the socialite Henrietta Moraes and Muriel Belcher, proprietress of unreal drinking progress the Concordat Room.
Deakin photographed these and conquer celebrated personalities alongside lesser-known Soho figures of picture day. Artisans and tradesmen, from depiction ice-seller become the under-chef, newspaper trafficker, street sweeper, vagrants take up outsiders – all were captured coarse his egalitarian, equitable lense. You buoy find come and go more daring act www.artbookspublishing.co.uk.
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BACON OWNED LUCIAN FREUD PHOTOGRAPH INSPIRES NEW JASPER JOHNS EXHIBITION
MoMA New York is currently hosting a new exhibition entitled: 'Jasper Johns: Regrets', which displays works by the American artist inspired by a photograph once owned by Francis Bacon. In June 2012, artist Jasper Johns was viewing a Christies London sales catalogue of work by Francis Bacon when he came across photographs of the painter Lucian Freud. They were taken by photographer John Deakin in 1964 at the request of Bacon, the artist famously preferring photographic reference over live models for his paintings. One particular photograph of Lucian Freud caught Jasper Johns’ eye. Freud is sitting on a quilt-covered brass bed in the corner of a room. He has one leg folded under the other, his head bowed, his face obscured by a raised hand. His stooped-shouldered, folded-in pose suggests exhaustion and despair. The despair is further reinforced by the condition of the photograph, creased and torn, with its left edge secured with a paper clip. The photo was found in Bacon's cluttered studio after his death in 1992. From this photograph, not just its image of Freud but the physical distressed condition of the photographic print itself, that Johns has based a group of nearly two do