Francis Bacon and Queerness Beyond Britain in the 1950s

Activity: Academic and Industrial eventsGuest lecture or Invited talk

Description

In the 1950s, Francis Bacon made repeat journeys to Tangier in Morocco, partly to follow his then-lover Peter Lacy. A small number of paintings survive that were either produced in Morocco or that reference Morocco in some way, and they have been under-explored in Bacon scholarship. At the same time, Morocco – and particularly Tangier – had become a space that attracted queer tourists and queer cultural figures in the post-war years. This paper builds on existing research on the relationship between Bacon’s art and queer contexts within Britain and asks how such histories can be expanded with an attention to the spaces outside of Britain into which queer British men travelled. Drawing on Morocco-focused paintings such as Man Carrying a Child, 1956 and Landscape Near Malabata, Tangier, 1963, this paper argues that international spaces like Tangier were crucial to Bacon’s negotiation and articulation of queerness in the post-war years.
Period11 May 2023
Event titleFrancis Bacon: The Beauty of Meat
Event typeSeminar
Degree of RecognitionInternational