.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
In August 1930 The Studio Magazine - Britain's leading forum for progressive architecture and design - published an article entitled The 1930 Look in British Decoration, which featured advance images of a small group of tubular steel and plywood furnishings, and a selection of rugs of modernist design, the ensemble having been photographed and exhibited in Bacon's small studio within a converted garage in Queensbury Mews West, South Kensington, prior to the forthcoming exhibition that November. Despite favourable reviews, the exhibition generated only modest commissions beyond the circle of friends already known to Bacon, and by 1933 Bacon abandoned his fledgling career as a decorator, to turn instead to painting.
Bacon’s decision to establish himself as a decorator was most probably informed by his exposure to the European avant-garde when in 1927, at the age of 18, he travelled first to Berlin and then to Paris, returning to London 1928-29. Paris, during the late 1920s, was at a creative apex following the momentum generated by the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs Internationale. It is during this brief period that Bacon would have been exposed to works by Eileen Gray, Jean Lurçat, Fernand Léger and Ivan da Silva Bruhns, all of whom were by then producing innovative abstract designs for carpets. Another probable influence upon Bacon’s decision to design modernist carpets was the first McKnight Kauffer and Dorn exhibition of modernist rugs at Tooth & Sons Gallery, London, January 1929. By 1929-30 therefore, the concept of the artist-designer carpet had gathered momentum in Britain and France, consequently the young designer's exploration of this medium is logical and in sensitivity to the zeitgeist of the times.
It is unknown how many designs for rugs Bacon created – up to twelve different designs can be identified from surviving examples and from period photographs – and it is unknown how many rugs were in fact manufactured. It is evident, however, from the photographs of Bacon’s studio taken in 1930 for The Studio, that he considered them as a viable and effective means of expression, for numerous examples populate both the floor and the wall. In 1983, referring to the rug of similar design to the present lot that is now in the collection of the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation in Monaco, Bacon noted that that design was created in 1929, and produced by Wilton.
To date, beyond the present example, eight other surviving Francis Bacon rugs can be identified. Two examples were sold at Sotheby's London in 1990, one of which was identified as being from the estate of Diana Watson, a favourite cousin of Francis Bacon. Another example is in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Three further examples, until recently on long-term loan to Tate Britain, were sold Christie’s London, October 2018. A seventh rug was sold by Sotheby’s Paris in 2013 – the design of which is identical to one of the three in the Tate – confirming that at least in this instance more than one example of the same design was produced. All of these rugs are broadly of the same approximate size, around 7' x 4', and all are believed to have been produced by Wilton as part of their ‘Wessex’ range of Modernist carpets, that also included designs by Dorn and McKnight Kauffer.
In the context of the present lot, it is the eighth remaining rug that is perhaps the most intriguing, having been the design that Bacon referred to in 1983 as designed in 1929 and executed by Wilton. Now in the MB Art Foundation in Monaco, this rug was sold by Christie’s Paris in 2011, having formerly been in the Collections of the Chateau de Gourdon since its acquisition in 2002. It is believed that this rug is the very same example that Bacon chose to retain for his own use, and that is photographed in his apartment (op. cit.,
The present lot is directly related to this example. Although the configuration of the design remains the same, in the present carpet the décor has been reversed to be laid as mirror-opposite. The mirroring of designs was favoured by many decorators during this period, and there is at least one other instance where Bacon reversed, to mirror-effect, the structure of a small tubular steel occasional table. Additionally, the palette has been revised to offer fields of shell-pink and lilac, as opposed to the mint-green and browns of the former. Finally, at 8' x 13' the present lot is of considerably greater size, approximately three times the surface area, than all the other known rugs. Unlike these others, which appear to have served effectively as decorative accents to both floors and walls, the substantial dimensions of the present carpet are of the proportions that might be anticipated for use in a large dining or living room.
The very large scale of this example offers further intrigue; had this carpet been produced by Wilton as part of their ‘Wessex’ range, the workshop’s characteristic highly-dense, labour-intensive and time-consuming knotting would have rendered a carpet of this size fantastically expensive to produce, and there is little evidence that in 1930 Bacon possessed the clients who had the economic means to match such a cost of such a carpet. It is therefore possible that to execute a carpet of this substantial size, either Bacon or Wilton identified an alternative workshop capable of producing a carpet of these impressive and large dimensions within reasonable speed and cost.
Bacon’s decision to establish himself as a decorator was most probably informed by his exposure to the European avant-garde when in 1927, at the age of 18, he travelled first to Berlin and then to Paris, returning to London 1928-29. Paris, during the late 1920s, was at a creative apex following the momentum generated by the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs Internationale. It is during this brief period that Bacon would have been exposed to works by Eileen Gray, Jean Lurçat, Fernand Léger and Ivan da Silva Bruhns, all of whom were by then producing innovative abstract designs for carpets. Another probable influence upon Bacon’s decision to design modernist carpets was the first McKnight Kauffer and Dorn exhibition of modernist rugs at Tooth & Sons Gallery, London, January 1929. By 1929-30 therefore, the concept of the artist-designer carpet had gathered momentum in Britain and France, consequently the young designer's exploration of this medium is logical and in sensitivity to the zeitgeist of the times.
It is unknown how many designs for rugs Bacon created – up to twelve different designs can be identified from surviving examples and from period photographs – and it is unknown how many rugs were in fact manufactured. It is evident, however, from the photographs of Bacon’s studio taken in 1930 for The Studio, that he considered them as a viable and effective means of expression, for numerous examples populate both the floor and the wall. In 1983, referring to the rug of similar design to the present lot that is now in the collection of the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation in Monaco, Bacon noted that that design was created in 1929, and produced by Wilton.
To date, beyond the present example, eight other surviving Francis Bacon rugs can be identified. Two examples were sold at Sotheby's London in 1990, one of which was identified as being from the estate of Diana Watson, a favourite cousin of Francis Bacon. Another example is in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Three further examples, until recently on long-term loan to Tate Britain, were sold Christie’s London, October 2018. A seventh rug was sold by Sotheby’s Paris in 2013 – the design of which is identical to one of the three in the Tate – confirming that at least in this instance more than one example of the same design was produced. All of these rugs are broadly of the same approximate size, around 7' x 4', and all are believed to have been produced by Wilton as part of their ‘Wessex’ range of Modernist carpets, that also included designs by Dorn and McKnight Kauffer.
In the context of the present lot, it is the eighth remaining rug that is perhaps the most intriguing, having been the design that Bacon referred to in 1983 as designed in 1929 and executed by Wilton. Now in the MB Art Foundation in Monaco, this rug was sold by Christie’s Paris in 2011, having formerly been in the Collections of the Chateau de Gourdon since its acquisition in 2002. It is believed that this rug is the very same example that Bacon chose to retain for his own use, and that is photographed in his apartment (op. cit.,
The present lot is directly related to this example. Although the configuration of the design remains the same, in the present carpet the décor has been reversed to be laid as mirror-opposite. The mirroring of designs was favoured by many decorators during this period, and there is at least one other instance where Bacon reversed, to mirror-effect, the structure of a small tubular steel occasional table. Additionally, the palette has been revised to offer fields of shell-pink and lilac, as opposed to the mint-green and browns of the former. Finally, at 8' x 13' the present lot is of considerably greater size, approximately three times the surface area, than all the other known rugs. Unlike these others, which appear to have served effectively as decorative accents to both floors and walls, the substantial dimensions of the present carpet are of the proportions that might be anticipated for use in a large dining or living room.
The very large scale of this example offers further intrigue; had this carpet been produced by Wilton as part of their ‘Wessex’ range, the workshop’s characteristic highly-dense, labour-intensive and time-consuming knotting would have rendered a carpet of this size fantastically expensive to produce, and there is little evidence that in 1930 Bacon possessed the clients who had the economic means to match such a cost of such a carpet. It is therefore possible that to execute a carpet of this substantial size, either Bacon or Wilton identified an alternative workshop capable of producing a carpet of these impressive and large dimensions within reasonable speed and cost.