Artist. Noted for paintings in which the human figure was often distorted, twisted and placed within boxlike enclosures, he was a self-taught painter. After exhibiting his painting, Three Studies at the Base of a Crucifixion, in 1944 at the Lefevre Galleries, he became the most controversial painter in post-war England. Bacon said of his paintings: ‘Art is a method of opening up areas of feeling rather than merely an illustration of an object…. I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence and memory trace of past events as the snail leaves it slime.’ He continued to paint into his 80’s. While traveling in Madrid, he died of a heart attach at the age of 82. There were none of his close friends at his funeral ceremony at the Almudena Cemtrery; a solitary bouquet of yellow and white roses was sent from his drinking companions at the French Pub in Soho. According to Andrew Sinclair ‘Just before three o’clock, a hearse disgorged a plain, dark wooden coffin with two copper handles and a cross on the lid – a final religious touch that Bacon would not have approved. Within eight minutes, the coffin was wheeled into the recess over the furnace to the taped music of Gregorian chants, and the body of the artist was reduced to ashes. The urn was consigned onto a flight back to Britian.’ (bio by: Scattergood-Moore)