Three Studies for the Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne by Francis Bacon

I saw these three Bacon studies of Isabel Rawsthorne at the De’ Visi Mostruosi e Caricature: From Leonardo da Vinci to Bacon exhibition in Venice at Palazzo Loredan in February 2023. Although not technically a triptych, the series functions like one. The figure on the left looks toward the figure on the right, and the figure on the right looks toward the left. If we had the chance to step outside of ourselves (the center image) and analyze who we are, what would we see? A life of satisfaction or dissatisfaction? Fulfillment or longing? The scars left on us by life? All the love we have known, or the pain of loss in our human existence? How would the sitter, Isabel Rawsthorne, have seen herself? And how did Bacon see Rawsthorne when he looked at her? Despite the heavy distortions in the images, she remains instantly recognizable as the subject of these studies.

Isabel Rawsthorne by John Deakin

Francis Bacon unapologetically worked from photographs. If you have ever seen images of his workspace, you will have noticed photographs scattered everywhere—many of them torn, crumpled, and trampled on the studio floor. Bacon eloquently described this preference to David Sylvester, who recorded it in the landmark Interviews with Francis Bacon:

“I’ve had photographs taken for portraits because I very much prefer working from photographs than from them. It’s true to say I couldn’t attempt to do a portrait from photographs of somebody I didn’t know. But, if I both know them and have photographs of them, I find it easier to work than actually having their presence in the room. I think that, if I have the presence of the sitter there, I am not able to drift so freely as I am able to through the photographic image. This may be just my own neurotic sense, but I find it less inhibiting to work from them through memory and their photographs than actually having them seated before me.”

Bacon was well aware that his sitters often disliked the distortions he inflicted upon their likenesses, frequently viewing them as physical injuries. Consequently, it suited him much better to work from photographic images. As he explained in Interviews with David Sylvester: "Whether the distortions which I think sometimes bring the image over more violently are damage is a very questionable idea. I don’t think it is damage. You may say it’s damaging if you take it on the level of illustration. But not if you take it on the level of what I think of as art. One brings the sensation and the feeling of life over the only way one can."

Isabel Rawsthorne, an artist and set designer, was a close friend of Bacon and a subject he returned to frequently, completing seven portraits of her—some based on photographs taken by John Deakin. Although the art critic and curator David Sylvester saw Rawsthorne, alongside Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Peter Lanyon, and John Craxton, as one of five outstanding "School of London" artists who would make an impact on the international art scene, she is mainly remembered today as a muse rather than an artist in her own right. Rawsthorne was portrayed not only by Bacon, but also by Jacob Epstein, André Derain, Balthus, Alberto Giacometti, and Pablo Picasso. She had a far greater impact than one would expect from a mere model, posing for these creators as a trusted friend and peer. In her book Out of the Cage: The Art of Isabel Rawsthorne, art historian and curator Carol Jacobi describes her as being "hidden in plain sight."