Francis Bacon in Your Blood - Softcover

Peppiatt, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408856301 ISBN 13: 9781408856307

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2016

Synopsis

"This fine memoir is more insightful than gossipy, and as a subject Bacon is just about unbeatable." -- The New York Times In June of 1963, when Michael Peppiatt first met Francis Bacon, the former was a college boy at Cambridge, the latter already a famous painter, more than thirty years his senior. And yet, Peppiatt was welcomed into the volatile artist's world; Bacon, considered by many to be "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," proved himself a devoted friend and father figure, even amidst the drinking and gambling. Though Peppiatt would later write perhaps the definitive biography of Bacon, his sharply drawn memoir has a different vigor, revealing the artist at his most intimate and indiscreet, and his London and Paris milieus in all their seediness and splendor. Bacon is felt with immediacy, as Peppiatt draws from contemporary diaries and records of their time together, giving us the story of a friendship, and a new perspective on an artist of enduring fascination.

About this title

Review:

This fine portrait of the artist is both gossipy and poignant . [and] one of the best art books I have read, by turns atmospheric and waspishly gossipy but also profound and poignant. (Michael Prodger The Times 2015-08-29)

A vivid new memoir by the artist's protégé is set to be a classic . highly entertaining . the narrative comes hurtling off the page with a palpable sense of release and apparently guileless, even artless, candour.The cavalcade of bohemian celebrities goes on and on . captivating...a classic, not only of art writing, but of personal memoir (Sunday Telegraph 2015-08-30)

There is a certain grisly satisfaction in watching an artist behave as one expects an artist to. Francis Bacon . always delivered and just how richly is recorded by Peppiatt . A wonderfully vivid account (Art Book of the Year Sunday Times)

The best art memoir published in years (Spectator)

An intoxicating tour of the painter's louchest, and most productive, years (Susie Rushton Vogue 2015-09-01)

Peppiatt offers a window into the experiences and emotional intelligence of this great artist (New Statesman 2015-08-21)

A remarkable book ... it captures what it was like to be in the presence of this brilliant, camp, reckless, waspish, drunken, generous, shameless character. Michael Peppiatt brings him back to life and somehow carries off the near-impossible trick of echoing the repetitive nature of his drunken talk ... while somehow preserving his electricity and effervescence (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday 2015-08-30)

An intimate memoir of two intense and interlaced lives ... Full of gossip, binges, nausea, bruises, stained sheets, punchlines and death wishes (Richard Davenport-Hines Times Literary Supplement)

This fine memoir is more insightful than gossipy, and as a subject Bacon is just about unbeatable (New York Times)

Fascinating and engaging (Lynn Barber Sunday Times 2015-09-06)

Book Description:

Deeply intimate memoir-biography of the most important artist of the twentieth century

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1408856301
• ISBN 13: 9781408856307
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416