Bacon in his studio, Jane Bown ,1985
On an airless white soundstage, shutters scream up. A man steps in. He walks with brass dignity, a hand in his pocket, wearing the colours and contours of Berlin; black turtleneck, grey blazer; mouth ajar like the eyes above it have found something tasty in a trap. Another man waits for him, suited, with the aspect of someone who could wait forever.
Not a word is spoken. They stand formally for a moment and offer small blinks of respect. Then the room goes dark. A projector burns fiercely. They turn to it, and see another open mouth. It's bottomless. A hole. A portal. “I had always thought,” says the first man, Francis Bacon, with the still-fluting voice of a Soho queen, “that I would be able to make the mouth with all the beauty of the Monet landscape. But I never did succeed in doing so.”
