Francis Bacon’s Painting Gloves at Auction
Paint Stained Gloves Art (?)
Are we taking our infatuation with artist’s too far when we worship their tools in addition to their work? Read more:
Artists and art lovers have often flocked to see the studios of their favorite painters. We like to see how the greats before us work. It can be enlightening. It can also be a relief to see that ours is not the only untidy studio in the world, or that we are not the only painter to have a touch of OCD.
As arts writer Jonathan Jones states:
Artists keepsakes go back to the Romantic age and reflect our romantic belief in artistic genius. Yet the greatest ones are works of art themselves. Michelangelo’s sculptures, their unfinished surfaces pockmarked by his chisel, are evidence of genius at work. Personally, I feel a religious awe at these tangible marks of Michelangelo’s living presence. Great artists are immortal, and their physical being is held in their art like a face on a shroud.
That is normally something that we go to as part of a museum or exhibition commemorating a famous artist. These displays often feature artifacts such as paint brushes, easel, palettes, perhaps an apron, an even an example of a still life or other favorite subject matter.
But would we want to own something that was used by one of our favorite painters?
Certainly the folks at Chiswick Auctions hope so. They are putting up for sale a pair of Francis Bacon’s painting gloves, reportedly worn while painting his series of paintings of Lucian Freud. Well, “a pair of gloves” may not be exactly correct. Yes, there are 2 gloves, but they are both left hands.
The 3 Studies of Lucian Freud sold at auction for $142 million in 2013. The auction house may be hoping to benefit from that association.
Read Jonathan Jones original article on the Guardian about the gloves, and the related article on the 3 Studies of Lucian Freud.
