Bacon inspired by 'gruesome medical images'

CONTROVERSIAL Dublin-born artist Francis Bacon used gruesome images in medical books for inspiration for some of his most shocking paintings, it was revealed yesterday.

Dr Margarita Cappock, head of the permanent collection at Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery, said textbooks on skin disorders, forensic pathology, surgery and X-ray techniques were behind some of the eccentric's most eye-catching paintings.

"He was very interested in medical imagery," said Dr Cappock, who has just penned a book, Francis Bacon's Studio, on the rebuilding of the artist's painting den in the Dublin city gallery.

A painstaking restoration project started at the gallery in 1998 after his long-time companion donated the studio and its contents.

Among the 7,500 items, including dirty paint brushes, books, photographs, drawings and slashed canvases found strewn across the floor of Bacon's chaotic studio in London, there were sheets ripped from books containing images of diseased toes.

"Twelve other medical textbooks were found in the studio. Some contain relentlessly gruesome images, such as A Colour Atlas of Forensic Pathology and A Colour Atlas of Nursing Procedures," she wrote.

"A lot of people are horrified by his paintings," Dr Cappock admitted, adding a close examination of his distorted paintings can reveal people with skin flaws and bodies modelled on meat carcasses.

More than 100,000 people have been to view the lifelike reconstruction of the artist's London studio in the Hugh Lane gallery since the walls, ceiling, doors and entire contents were moved to Dublin and opened to view in the gallery in 2001.

Dr Cappock said the artist had stuck to his cramped studio in No 7 Reece Mews in South Kensington between 1961 and his death, aged 83, in 1992 as he liked the light in the building.

Dr Cappock revealed: "He said he liked to work in chaos as it bred images in him. The chaos was important to him."

The book, which will be launched tomorrow, revealed the materials found in the studio have shown a host of topics captured the attention of the artist, including paranormal phenomena, political leaders, war and assassination attempts.

"Several loose leaves with features on the assassinations of Leon Trotsky, John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were found throughout the studio," she said.