Jack Vettriano announces today that a limited edition of a portrait of Francis Bacon by Michael Clark is to be released by Heartbreak Publishing to mark Bacon’s centenary.
Vettriano approached Michael Clark about the idea of publishing an edition after seeing the original drawing in a private collection in London. Vettriano was fascinated to learn that Michael Clark had known Francis Bacon well and was delighted when the artist agreed to allow him to publish his exceptional drawing as an edition. This is one of the first editions to be published by the newly formed Heartbreak Publishing, which Vettriano co-owns. The first print from this edition, no.1/100, now hangs in Vettriano’s home in London.
When asked to talk about his favourite artist in an interview for The Times, Vettriano chose Francis Bacon and commented:
“Late last year, I visited the Bacon exhibition at the Tate Britain. I had previously seen isolated examples of his work in london and New york; I felt very priveleged to be in those rooms but the overwhelming emotion was one of pure, unadulterated shock. My senses were being ravished. I felt I was reeling from room to room, I had never experienced anything quite like this before. I fled, breathless into the Winter’s day trying to comprehend what I had just seen.
My Baconisation started in 1995 when I read Dan Farson’s wonderful ‘The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon’; I became instantly fascinated and captivated by both his work and his lifestyle. Here is a man who over forty years earlier had assaulted the sensibilities of the London art viewing public by exhibiting ‘Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion’. It was a horrorifying introduction to a body of work that was to evolve into surely one of the most important ever created.
Here is a man, self taught, almost entirely self-educated, painting the pleasure and the pain of his own existence. Such integrity produces great art – for great art is from the heart.”
The edition is being published in association with Blesse Projects.
Click here for information about Michael Clark.
All general enquiries regarding original paintings by Jack Vettriano should be directed to Jack Vettriano Publishing in Edinburgh via email info@jackvettriano.com or by telephone on +44 (0)131 215 1025.