Bacon preferred to work from photographs or memory rather than live models, often merging parts of multiple figures into one image. To compose this screaming androgynous figure, he borrowed from an array of sources, including sixteenth-century portraits, popular cinema, and medical textbooks. Bacon once noted that he was “moved by” the movement and shape of mouths and teeth, and here the dark void of the subject’s own serves as the painting’s focal point. The figure’s white clothing and the yellow railing behind him suggest that he may be in a psychiatric institution. Produced in the decade after World War II, Bacon’s head expresses the despair and anguish brought on by its atrocities. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2025
