Livestreaming from the Francis Bacon: The First Pope exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, London, the conversation will explore the groundbreaking rediscovery of the painting 'Landscape with Pope/Dictator' (c. 1946), the painting's importance as arguably the earliest exemplar in Bacon's pope series, and how the artist's fascination with propaganda and the conflation of Fascist and papal imagery played a significant role both in this particular work and the series as a whole. Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 - 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. Rejecting various classifications of his work, Bacon said he strove to render "the brutality of fact." He built up a reputation as one of the giants of contemporary art with his unique style.
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