‘What’s really exciting is this is only half of Bacon’s original painting,’ says specialist Angus Granlund, bringing together two halves of an unfinished work by the artist that was split and reversed - the other side used as a canvas for two landscapes by Irish artist Tony O’Malley.
‘This is the first time that both works will be viewed together in almost 60 years,’ says Granlund, lifting O’Malley’s seascapes out of their frames to reveal Bacon’s sweeping brushstrokes, which join to form a fleshy, unfinished study of a male nude.
Completed during Bacon’s fleeting stay in St. Ives in 1959, the work is one of only six paintings the artist is known to have made during the period. ‘It makes this even more rare and interesting,’ says Granlund.
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