Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne, 1966
Francis Bacon painted more than twenty portraits of his close friend Isabel Rawsthorne. Her strange, big eyes with their self-assured but surprised expression were so familiar to him that he could paint them time and again without ever lapsing into repetition. In this portrait, Bacon has achieved grandeur. Rawsthorne's face stands out against the dark background, separated from it by a razor-sharp line of lank hair. Her shoulders are surrounded by a voile scarf, a beautifully painted wisp of pale blue, edged by a few swift strokes of the brush. But in her face, the paint suddenly goes on the rampage. Her mouth is gagged by it and the upper part of her face seems to be split, as if she is seen at once from in front and from the side, as in a portrait from Picasso's Cubist period.