Francis Bacon – Artist

Francis Bacon, born 28 October 1909 at 63 Lower Baggot St., Dublin. His father, who was a former captain in the British army, had moved to Ireland to breed racehorses and moved to Kilcullen, in Co. Kildare. The family lived in London during WWII but later returned to Ireland. Francis suffered from asthma and this disrupted any formal education. He did receive some private tuition before attending Dean Close, a boarding school in Cheltenham, from 1924 to 1926.

Plaque at 63 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin

Bacon as 16 when he went to London after an argument with his father. Between 1927–8 he travelled in Europe, where seeing drawings by Pablo Picasso in Berlin gave him the inspiration to become an artist. Poussin’s  ‘Massacre of the innocents’ also made a deep impression on him. However, the blood-splattered face of a screaming nurse in Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin was an image that Bacon used in later years – as in  ‘Study for the head of a screaming pope’ (1952).

Between 1928-29, he designed modernist furniture and rugs, and achieved some success. However, he was not impressed with what he was doing and soon devoted himself to developing his art. A patron, Eric Hall, helped him financially for many years, and funded the artist’s studio in Fulham. Here he painted ‘Crucifixion’ (1933), his first significant work, and one immediately by the influential art critic Herbert Read.

With ‘Three studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion’ (1944) he was recognised as a new force in post-war art. He exhibited in all the major galleries, and in 1988 he became the first living western artist to have a retrospective in the Soviet Union, at the New Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

He died 28 April 1992 from a heart attack while in Madrid. Years later his studio was gifted to the Hugh Lane Gallery, and the thousands of pieces and walls were carefully documented before their removal and instillation in Dublin.

The artist’s studio

Botanic Gardens – Sculpture in Context

The Palm House

If you go down to the woods today, well gardens really, you’ll be in for a big surprise. The gardens are the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, where the 36^th version of Sculpture in Context exhibition is running until 7^th October.

The place was bathed in sunshine when I visited, and got a map of the Gardens in the Visitor Centre. This was helpful, and I made my way along the paths glancing at it and spotting some pieces of sculpture that lay, cleverly placed, among the colourful plants. Some were indeed a surprise and I heard a few giggles from fellow visitors when they, too, came upon these gems.

Manic by Martin O’Keefe

The works of more than 120 artists are on show featuring a broad range of media which show varied styles and the rich, complex nature of Irish and international sculpture. Some small pieces are on show in the gallery above the Visitor Centre, a wonderfully shaped room that is worth a visit.

Sculpture in Context is a most important event in the Irish arts calendar, and it is the longest-running and biggest sculpture exhibition in the country. It always attracts a large public and critical audience, and it has become the cultural highlight of the National Botanic Gardens calendar.

Quack-Quack

On my way around the Gardens I took some photographs of various plants and, of course, pieces of sculpture. I went into the wonderful Palm House (the hottest place in Dublin!) and spotted some pieces among the enormous, green leaves. After that I made my way towards the ponds where an enormous, golden frog was leaping above the water. This great piece,  Quack-Quack by Petr Holecek, really does jump at you and is not to be missed!

All in all, the exhibition is a ‘must see’.

Open to the public, free admission – until 7^th October.

Sheridan Le Fanu – Writer

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–73), novelist and journalist, was born 28th August 1814 in Lower Dominick Street, Dublin. His father, Rev. Thomas Philip Le Fanu (1784–1845), Church of Ireland clergyman, was related to the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His early childhood was spent in the quiet surroundings of the Phoenix Park, where in 1815 his father was chaplain in the Royal Hibernian Military School.

Sheridan Le Fanu

Le Fanu was educated at home, before attending Trinity College from where he graduated with a BA in 1836. His first story was published in the Dublin University Magazine, and it was the first of a series of ghost stories that were published, posthumously, in 1880 as The Purcell papers.

Le Fanu studied law at the King’s Inns and was called to the bar in 1839, but enjoyed little success. In 1840 he purchased the Warder, a Dublin evening paper, which he retained until 1870, and The Statesman, a less successful paper, which ceased publication in 1846.

On the 18th December 1843, Le Fanu married Susan Bennett and they had two sons and two daughters. Susan suffered from depression and she dreamt of her father’s ghost inviting her to join him in the family burial vault. Le Fanu was deeply affected by her death on 16 April 1858, and it has been suggested that the recurrence of emotionally scarred women experiencing a form of living death reflects guilt over his relationship with his wife and concern on raising his daughters. Carmilla, the last of five stories in the collection In a Glass Darkly (1872) introduces a female vampire, and The Vampire Lovers (1970), is its most well-known film adaption. The ‘stories’ were from the notebooks of Dr Martin Hesselius, who Bram Stoker used as the model for his character Van Helsing in Dracula (1897).

He died on the 7th February 1873 of bronchitis at his home, 70 Merrion Square, Dublin, and was buried on 11 February at Mount Jerome cemetery.

Plaque at 70 Merrion Square, Dublin