Francis Bacon
Triptych
24 February - 7 May 2006
To complement the Adelaide Festival production of Three Furies: Scenes from the Life of Francis Bacon, the Art Gallery of South Australia is exhibiting the great Bacon work Triptych (1970) on loan from the National Gallery of Australia.
This triptych features Bacon's partner and model George Dyer, and is the only Bacon triptych
in an Australian public collection. Bacon is thought to have painted 33 large triptychs in his
life, of which 28 are known to survive intact.
"Triptychs" said Bacon in 1979, "are the thing I like doing most, and I think this may be
related to the thought I've sometimes had of making a film. I like the juxtaposition of the images
separated on three different canvasses. So far as my work has any quality, I often feel perhaps it
is the triptychs that have the most quality".
