Francis Bacon

This lovely and coherent Swabian town of 600,000 souls has a splendid new art museum by British architect James Stirling, an edifice that would grace a city five times its size. Opened last year, the widely acclaimed Neue Staatsgalerie at the moment plays host to the works of England's most eminent living painter, Francis Bacon. Just those few facts make enticing suggestions about a vital and cosmopolitan German culture.

The Art of Cruelty A Reckoning Maggie Nelson W.W. Norton: 304 pp., $24.95 From a movie billboard in her Los Angeles neighborhood to the Italian Futurists, Maggie Nelson swings her lively gaze across a century's worth of art and culture in "The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning. " The starting point for this study of violence and art is Antonin Artaud, the French playwright behind the "theatre of cruelty" who wrote that cruelty in art "signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.

Francis Bacon was inarguably the greatest British figurative painter of the 20th Century, one of those typical stand-alone artists that England produces--Gainsborough, Turner, Blake. He died of a heart attack Tuesday in a Madrid hospital while vacationing in Spain. He was 82. He burst insidiously on the world in the mid-1950s with strange paintings like "Study After Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X."

Francis Bacon's portrait of his friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud fetched $37 million at a London auction Thursday. Auctioneer Sotheby's said that the triptych, "Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud," was bought a bidder who wished to remain anonymous. The crimson-toned artwork captures a distorted vision of Freud, who like Bacon was one of postwar Britain's leading artists. ?Associated Press Singlehood in sight for Sheen Charlie Sheen can go back to being single, but he'll have to wait a few months before it's official, a judge ruled Thursday.

Sometimes it really is better to let a painter's work speak for itself. That's the feeling that John Maybury's adventurous but off-putting "Love Is the Devil" leaves you with. Cautiously subtitled "Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon," it concentrates on the painter's relationship with his lover and model George Dyer, the inspiration for a series of key works in the Bacon canon.

After dinner in private houses, Princess Margaret likes to sing Cole Porter. As sister of the most powerful monarch in the world, she can generally hold guests captive to her lack of ability. One night, though, at a fancy ball given by Ann, Lady Rothermere (later Mrs. Ian Fleming), the princess began the familiar lyrics of "Let's Do It," when the cheering of Queen Elizabeth's subjects was drowned out by the sound of booing rumbling like thunder from the back of the ballroom.

Francis Bacon, widely regarded as Britain's greatest contemporary painter, died of a heart attack in a Madrid hospital Tuesday. Bacon, who had suffered from asthma, became ill while visiting friends in Spain. The 82-year-old painter was highly controversial in traditional artistic circles, since his powerful canvases, executed with splashing brush strokes, were often concerned with the themes of sex, suffering and death. Many regarded his paintings as obscene.

In the mid-1950s, a UCLA exhibition included a new British artist--Francis Bacon. He was represented by "Study After Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X." Awed faculty dragged their budding-genius students down to have a look. It wasn't surprising that the kids had never seen anything quite like it, but neither had grizzled art teachers, who had seen a good bit. The sinister, crafty Pope was pictured suddenly screaming.

"The more indiscreet you are, the better the book will be," Francis Bacon counseled Michael Peppiatt about this biography. The English painter believed in laying things bare. The bold brushwork of his canvases presented screaming popes, anguished figures crouched on toilets, nude male wrestlers in a frenzy of violent sex.

In the summer of 1953, British painter Francis Bacon invited his friend, art critic David Sylvester, to sit for a portrait in the "gilded squalor" of his studio. Sometime during the fourth sitting, Sylvester's likeness mutated (as Bacon's images were prone to do) into a somber, ghost-like portrait of the pope.

A Francis Bacon painting the artist donated to an art college in lieu of rent decades ago has sold for $16.4 million at an auction where solid but unspectacular results suggest global financial turmoil may be unsettling the art market. "Study From the Human Body, Man Turning On the Light" was bought late Sunday by an anonymous bidder at Christie's auction house in London.

A portrait by British painter Francis Bacon sold for $27.6 million, a record price for the artist, Christie's auction house said. Bacon, who died in 1992, is considered one of Britain's most important 20th century artists. "Study for Portrait II" is one of a series of Bacon works inspired by Diego Velazquez's 1650 "Portrait of Pope Innocent X," auctioneers said. Christie's spokeswoman Rhiannon Broomfield said the buyer had not agreed to disclose an identity or nationality.

A Francis Bacon painting fetched $15 million at Sotheby's contemporary and postwar auction, smashing the record for the Dublin-born artist. Bacon's "Version No. 2 of Lying Figure With Hypodermic Syringe," a powerful 1968 work, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder, eclipsing the old record by some $5 million. The work was one of 27 being sold Tuesday from the noteworthy Vanthournout collection, all of which found buyers.

A major Francis Bacon painting that has lain hidden in the vaults of an Iranian museum for three decades went on display in London for the first time Friday. The 1968 triptych, "Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendants," shows two naked men on a bed in the central panel. They are watched on one side by a naked man in a chair with a flapping bird, on the other by a monkey and a seated man wearing a suit.

John Edwards, 53, who was the artist Francis Bacon's closest friend for 18 years and heir to his paintings and property, died Tuesday in Bangkok of lung cancer. The model for at least 30 of Bacon's portraits, Edwards was a barman in London's East End when he met Bacon, 40 years his senior, in 1974. The two men became close friends. Bacon relied on Edwards to destroy works that he deemed unsatisfactory. He also took him along on his frequent gambling and drinking forays into London nightlife.

In the summer of 1953, British painter Francis Bacon invited his friend, art critic David Sylvester, to sit for a portrait in the "gilded squalor" of his studio. Sometime during the fourth sitting, Sylvester's likeness mutated (as Bacon's images were prone to do) into a somber, ghost-like portrait of the pope.

A star was born when "I, Claudius" premiered on PBS in 1977. A 13-part adaptation of Robert Graves' saga of corruption in the Roman empire, the BBC series starred British actor Derek Jacobi as a stuttering, twitching boy who grows up to be emperor. Jacobi was 37 when the series was shot and was already an acclaimed stage actor in England. He was virtually unknown to Americans, however, who were thunderstruck by his exquisitely nuanced performance.

"I rely on chance as much as possible and push the paint around until something happens." --Artist Francis Bacon, in Hugh Davies' and Sally Yard's new book,"Francis Bacon."

A star was born when "I, Claudius" premiered on PBS in 1977. A 13-part adaptation of Robert Graves' saga of corruption in the Roman empire, the BBC series starred British actor Derek Jacobi as a stuttering, twitching boy who grows up to be emperor. Jacobi was 37 when the series was shot and was already an acclaimed stage actor in England. He was virtually unknown to Americans, however, who were thunderstruck by his exquisitely nuanced performance.

Sometimes it really is better to let a painter's work speak for itself. That's the feeling that John Maybury's adventurous but off-putting "Love Is the Devil" leaves you with. Cautiously subtitled "Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon," it concentrates on the painter's relationship with his lover and model George Dyer, the inspiration for a series of key works in the Bacon canon.