until Sunday January 08 2017

Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
T : +34 94 435 90 90
Avenida Abandoibarra, 2
48001 Bilbao
Spain

FROM PICASSO TO VELÁZQUEZ

Francis Bacon: From Picasso to Velázquez presents a selection of nearly 90 of the Anglo-Irish artist’s most compelling paintings, including many rarely exhibited works, alongside those by artists who influenced his career.

While a fervent Francophile, Francis Bacon was also well-versed in the work of Spanish masters such as Diego Velázquez, and the exhibition explores the influence of both cultures on his art. Bacon, who became a painter after seeing the exhibition Cent dessins par Picasso at Paul Rosenberg’s gallery in Paris, was a great connoisseur of French literature and painting. He avidly read the writings of Jean Racine, Honoré Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, and Marcel Proust and admired the art of Édouard Manet, Edgard Degas, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.