A Francis Bacon painting of his friend Henrietta Moraes, one of the few women the artist painted, is expected to fetch as much as 7.5 million pounds ($13.9 million) when it comes up for auction in London.
The 14-inch-high (36-centimeter) head-and-shoulders portrait, showing the sitter turning to her left against a plain yellow background, will be included in Christie’s International’s Oct. 19 sale of contemporary art, the auction house said in an e- mailed statement. The sale takes place on the concluding Sunday of the Frieze Art Fair.
Moraes, a model, was a close friend of Bacon’s during the 1950s and 1960s, spending evenings drinking with him, Lucian Freud and other Soho bohemians at the Colony Room Club. Bacon included Moraes in a number of his paintings using photos taken of her by John Deakin.
Dating from 1969, “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” has been put up for sale by fellow Colony Room regular Garech Browne, a member of the Guinness family, who bought the work in 1970. The painting is inscribed by Moraes on the back of the canvas.
“I remember well my years in Soho”, Browne said in the e- mailed release. He met Freud at the age of 12. “Lucian would take me to the Gargoyle Club where Johnny Minton, Francis Bacon and Stephen Spender were often to be found. I would not be allowed in by the bouncers so Lucian would put me under his long overcoat and I walked on his feet to gain entry”.
Browne went on to found Claddagh Records and oversee the formation of the Irish folk group the Chieftains, said Christie’s.
In July at Sotheby’s, in London a similar-sized 1967 “Study for Head of George Dyer” by Bacon sold for 13.8 million pounds with fees, said the saleroom result tracker Artnet.
Bacon is the subject of a retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain that runs through Jan. 4, 2009.
Moraes battled drink and drug addictions, had many lovers, once shared a flat with singer Marianne Faithfull and was sent to prison after an unsuccessful attempt to become a cat burglar. (Bloomberg)