Francis BACON sends his new triptych to his friend LEIRIS.

Francis BACON (1909.1992)

Autograph letter signed to Michel Leiris.

Two pages in-4° (272 x 205 mm), in French, in blue marker.

London. February 12 [19]82

“Here is the ectecrom of a new tryptich. »

Rare and beautiful letter from the British painter sending a view of one of his triptychs to his friend Leiris.

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“ 7 Reece Mews, London, SW7. 12/2/82; Dear Michel , Here is the ectecrome of a new tryptich . the color is a little hard to see because it is a very bright orange I hope Michel all is well with you and Zette – I received a letter from Edward Burns saying he had a wonderful vacation with you both . see you soon I hope but love to you both Francis. »

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The painter and the writer met in 1975, during the opening of the retrospective “Alberto Giacometti”, presented at the Tate Gallery in London. Their relationship intensified during Bacon's numerous stays in Paris in the mid-1970s.

Twice, in 1976 and 1978, Francis Bacon painted the portrait of Michel Leiris. The painter created his first portrait ( Portrait of Michel Leiris , AM 1984-487), just as he finished reading his autobiography. The pathetic face he paints, devoured by the abyss, echoes the text in which Leiris describes his existence as a shadow theater, of which his skull constitutes the stage space. The second portrait (not referenced in the catalog raisonné) is both more realistic and complex. Francis Bacon saw, in the writings of Leiris, the literary mirror of his pictorial enterprise. Leiris, like him, never ceased to refute any idea of ​​permanence, of fixity of beings and things.

Focusing on the work of Francis Bacon, Michel Leiris, for his part, underlines his dialectic between mastery and abandonment to the accidental, his splendid submission to what he calls “subjugated chances”. (Didier Ottinger – Pompidou center)

Bacon here refers to the triptych Studies of the human body, 1979 or more likely to the work entitled Triptych 1983.