Catalogue | Picasso - Bacon

What It Feels Like to Be Human

This catalogue undertakes an exciting juxtaposition of the 20th century’s two most important figurative painters: Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon.
Bacon was inspired to become a painter by Picasso’s works. Throughout his life, he would compete with him, eventually striving to surpass him. Bacon wanted to be the late 20th-century version of what Picasso was to its first half: a chronicler of being human in all of its tornness.
Both of these seminal artists placed human existence at the core of their pictorial worlds. The subject they shared was the human figure – pulled apart, thrown back together, and reinvented with an unprecedented savagery. In their distorted portrayals, they elucidated pain, desire, and vulnerability, holding up a merciless mirror to the modern soul.
This 184-page comprehensive catalogue accompanies the exhibition and features texts by Martin Hammer, Michael Kurtz, Alyce Mahon, Michael Peppiatt and Ben Ware.