Francis bacon works on paper by TFBC

FBF The Francis Bacon Foundation of the drawings donated to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino

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DRAWINGS A Catalogue of the Drawings by the Artist Donated to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino

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contents

Notice to the Catalogue … 7 Curators of the Catalogue … 8–9 Edward Lucie-Smith Francis Bacon’s Drawings … 11 Umberto Guerini Francis Bacon Used Draw … 15 Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino Happy Sad Memories of Beloved Francis Bacon … 35

Body of Works … 39

Appendix List of Works … 345 Witness Statement of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino … 357 Witness Statement of Umberto Guerini … 360 Witness Statement of Brian & Lyndsay Hayhow … 364 Witness Statement of Lyndsay Hayhow … 367 Witness Statement of Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser … 370 Witness Statement of Ambra Draghetti … 373 Francis Bacon Gift Note … 381 Francis Bacon Signature Assessment by Ambra Draghetti … 382 List of Previous Exhibitions & Publications of Francis Bacon Drawings from Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino Collection … 385

NOTICE

Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino is the owner of finished, large-scale artworks, drawings, pastels and collages that were given to him as gifts between 1977 and 1992 by Francis Bacon, as is proven, among other evidences, by a deed of gift, dated and signed personally by the Irish painter. The deed of gift reads as follows: â&#x20AC;&#x153;02/04/1988 I left all my drawings to Christian Ravarino. I am indebted to him and Italian renaissance culture. I also have the suspicion that in all those years Marlborough Gallery cheated and robbed me thanks to awkward situations created by the gallery itself. With love, Francis Bacon.â&#x20AC;? During 15 years of close friendship, Francis Bacon gave to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino more than 600 works on paper. Most of them are published in this catalogue and a large number are still in the possession of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino.

The curators: Edward Lucie-Smith Umberto Guerini

EDWARD LUCIE-SMITH Born: 1933

Edward is a poet, art critic and prolific art-book writer. He is the author of over 200 art books and several hundred catalogue essays. Born in Jamaica into the family of a British civil servant, he and his mother moved to England in 1946. In 1949 Lucie-Smith received a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford University, still only seventeen, and earned a B.A. in 1954. Lucie-Smith wrote art criticism for Isis, Oxford’s student magazine, the Listener, the New Statesman and the BBC program Critics as well. In 1961 the publisher Paul Hamlyn (1926–2001) commissioned Lucie-Smith’s first book, a popularized 48-page art history on Peter Paul Rubens for the Spring Books series. This started a spate of art book writing. Lucie-Smith edited The Penguin Book of Elizabethan Verse for Penguin Press in 1965. His most popular art book, Movements in Art since 1945, first appeared in 1969 and has continually been revised. A second poetry anthology, the Penguin anthology British Poetry Since 1945 appeared in 1970. Lucie-Smith published an influential popular book on photography, The Invented Eye, in 1975. Art Now, a book of “unconventional judgments“ (New York Times), appeared in 1977, and The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms in 1984. In the late 1990’s, he began a collaboration with the artist Judy Chicago, first co-authoring Women and Art: Contested Territory (1999) with her, a book exploring women both as subjects and creators of art, and then a biography of Chicago in 2000. His major books have been translated into many world languages including Spanish, Russian, Japanese and others. His book Art Now was published in Brazil in 2006 and in China in 2014. When Lucie-Smith’s art books do not incorporate new research they are praised for restating the complexities of art history to a larger lay audience which makes his work on art more than simple survey work.

UMBERTO GUERINI Born: 1957

Is an Italian white collar crime specialized lawyer, past professor in criminal law in Bologna University â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Alma Mater Law School. Is the senior partner of Guerini & Partners Lawyers based in Bologna. Published a lot of books on criminal law and political justice and, in 2009, The Tip of an Iceberg. Francis Bacon Drawings (Maretti Editore), the first book that tells the history of the drawings donated by Francis Bacon to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. He was the curator of the Francis Bacon drawings exhibitions in Venice, Milano, London, Buenos Aires, Prague, Kaohsiung and Aguascalientes. The last new books, published in 2013, about the drawings are: The Challenge of Authenticity: the Drawings Donated by Francis Bacon to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino (Maretti Editore) and Francis Bacon: He Used to Draw (Maretti Editore).

Francis Bacon Photo by Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser

FRANCIS BACON’S DRAWINGS Edward Lucie-Smith

There are few subjects more controversial, in the recent history of contemporary art, than that of Francis Bacon’s drawings. On this occasion the question really divides itself into two parts. The first is: “Did Bacon draw?“ The second is: “Did Bacon produce the series of drawings presented here?“ As everyone interested in Bacon’s work knows, Bacon many times, and often vehemently, denied that he made any use of drawing. This is contradicted however by an early interview with the critic David Sylvester (Bacon’s most frequent interlocutor), which is preserved on film. In it, Bacon admits that he does draw, but coyly says that puts his drawings aside and doesn’t look at them, when the moment comes to paint a picture. In an article published in the New York Review of Books in December 2009, the art historian John Richardson, who knew Bacon fairly well, asserted, not that Bacon didn’t draw, but that he couldn’t. “Never having attended an art school was a source of pride to Bacon. With the help of a meretricious Australian painter, Roy de Maistre, he taught himself to paint, for which he turned out to have a great flair; tragically, he failed to teach himself to draw. Painting after painting would be marred by his inability to articulate a figure or its space. Peppiatt recalls that, decades later, so embarrassed was Bacon at being asked by a Parisian restaurateur to do a drawing in his livre d’or that he doubled the tip and made for the exit.” Yet, since Bacon’s lonely death in Madrid in 1992, a mass of evidence has emerged to show that he not only did draw, but drew prolifically. When he died, for example, a canvas he had just begun was found in his Reece Mews studio in London. On it was a masterly full-scale drawing for the composition he intended to paint. Numerous scraps of paper with drawings on them, some mere scribbles it is true, were found when the Reece Mews studio was disassembled, to be afterwards reconstructed in Dublin. An even greater mass of material of this type turned up in the possession of Barry Joule, who had evolved from being Bacon’s neighbor into being his odd-job man and general Mr. Fixit. Joule’s account is that Bacon, shortly before his death, handed him the drawings, with the words “You know what to do with these, don’t you?” Some people, knowing of Bacon’s frequent denials that he drew, might have understood this as an instruction to destroy them, but Joule chose to think otherwise. When the drawings emerged into public view, there was uproar. David Sylvester, after a moment of hesitation, said that, while the material undoubtedly originated in Bacon’s studio, he could not recognize Bacon’s hand in it. Joule was roundly abused by various of Bacon’s drinking companions at the Colony Club in London’s Soho, and still more so by Bacon fans and groupies who had never in fact met the artist, for making, or best promoting, fakes. While it is true that much of the Joule material is of disappointing quality artistically — a lot of it consists of rough drawings made on top of photographs torn from books and magazines, with others on top of photos, such as portraits of Bacon’s old nanny, also for a time his housekeeper, that were very personal to

Bacon himself — there are powerful reasons for accepting it as genuine. One has already been offered: the fact that the archive is closely linked to material found in the studio after Bacon’s death. There is also the fact that one series of drawings in the Joule archive — made on top of illustrations ripped from boxing magazines dating from the late 1940s — has a direct link to a series of drawings purchased as genuine by the Tate shortly before the Joule archive emerged. These drawings, also made on top of illustrations ripped from boxing magazines, belonged to Paul Danquah, a friend with whom Bacon shared a flat in the early 1950s. Bacon seems to have given them to Danquah (who later emigrated to Tangier) when they were co-habiting. The Joule material appears to cover a long period, and to be closely linked to a number of well-known paintings by Bacon. The artist closely guarded access to his studio and it is hard to imagine him allowing anyone, even a boyfriend, to sit there in a corner, manufacturing Bacon related drawings. The two chief consorts of the middle and later years of his career were George Dyer, an ex-burglar of notable incompetence, who committed suicide in 1971 on the eve of Bacon’s first major retrospective in Paris; and John Edwards, who though shrewd and loyal, was uneducated, dyslexic and illiterate. They both seem to be unlikely candidates. The story of Dyer’s suicide and its aftermath does, however, give one some idea of what the situation was like in Bacon’s London entourage. Basically there was a party line — such as the assertion that Bacon didn’t draw and that the paintings he made appeared on canvas through some kind of shamanic magical act — and those who wished to remain in favour did well to stick to it. The line on Dyer’s suicide was that it was an accident, though there were plenty of people who knew this wasn’t the case. An elderly British critic called Robert Melville, one of Bacon’s first supporters, let slip the truth in print, and was immediately attacked by the coterie of Bacon’s friends as a liar and a miscreant. Bacon did nothing to correct this. The Joule material — and other drawings related to it — have been a permanent embarrassment to a part of the British art establishment ever since they first made their way into the public gaze. If the material that emerged from Bacon’s studio after his death is problematic because of its lack of real artistic quality, the same cannot be said of the drawings published here. These are often ambitious, signed and on a large scale, and were clearly made as independent works of art, not as studies for paintings. In many ways they seem to sum up the essence of what Bacon tried to do. Why were they made, and why have they remained at least half-hidden for so long? The evidence is that Bacon, though extremely controlling about the behaviour of his London entourage, also found his celebrity increasingly oppressive. His solution was to slip away to places where he was little known or not known at all, where he could stroll from bar to bar and from restaurant to restaurant, and amuse himself as he wished. One of his favorite places for escapes of this kind was Italy. A constant companion in his Italian adventures was a young and handsome American-Italian called Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. There is plenty of evidence that they were often seen together, in locations as different from one another as Bologna and Cortina d’Ampezzo. The drawings shown here are presentation drawings, resembling in this the drawings that the ageing Michelangelo made for the young Tommaso Cavallieri. There seem to have been several motivations for making them, apart from Bacon’s desire to commemorate a friendship. One was simply restlessness. Though happy to get away from the confines of his studio, Bacon still wanted to make art — but art of a light and portable kind (though not all of the drawings were made in Italy, some appear to have been done in London). At the end of his life, he wanted to try a new medium, one that had clearly always daunted him. He also seems to have wanted to correct mistakes

made in the past. One striking feature of this series of drawings is that they recapitulate themes from work made much earlier in his career. Though the drawings belong to the last decade of Bacon’s artistic activity, their subjects are those that Bacon became associated with in the 1950s — the Popes after Velasquez and the portraits of businessmen. There are also self-portraits and sketches of friends. The Pope images are expanded into a series of portraits of ecclesiastics, perhaps inspired by what Bacon saw in the streets of Italian towns. There are also portraits of friends and images of the Crucifixion, a subject that preoccupied the artist throughout his life. Bacon frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the early works that had made his reputation, and these are an attempt to do better. In particular, they often seem to be preoccupied with the problem of locating a figure in space mentioned by John Richardson. The transparent boxes that often enclose the figures in the early work — rather like the glass box that enclosed Eichmann at his trial in Israel in 1961, but in fact invented by Bacon earlier — are absent from the drawings, where the figures are often held in place by firmly ruled lines. Another feature of the drawings is that they still exhibit some of the “strategies of avoidance“ that appear in the work that came from the studio. If those are often on top of photographs, the Ravarino drawings frequently show signs of having been constructed with the help of items from a children’s geometry set — not only compasses for the circles round the eyes (a feature that also appears in Bacon’s paintings), but lines drawn with the help of the kind of template known as a French curve. Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino confirms that Bacon asked him to purchase simple geometrical instruments of this kind, and in fact expressed disappointment that Italian versions were no different from British ones. Bacon regarded his relationship to Ravarino as unofficial, in the sense that he could never get his friend to commit himself to something fully public — Ravarino worried what his family would say. The artist seems to have thought of the drawings as being essentially unofficial as well. He went to considerable trouble to keep their existence secret from his commercial representatives, the powerful Marlborough Gallery, who wished — even more than he did — to preserve the commercially powerful myth of his shamanic creative persona, an artist whose work manifested itself magically upon the canvas. In fact, as earlier drawings firmly connected with paintings show, Bacon often had to struggle. These preparatory sheets, as I have said, are not represented here. One fascinating aspect of the drawings catalogued now is the fact that they are the work of a Laocoon, a man struggling hard to escape from the entwining serpents of his own myth, and to return to the pleasure of making art for its own sake — no other reason than that. They also, however, show Bacon’s pre-occupation in old age with the nature of his own artistic legacy.

FRANCIS BACON USED DRAW Umberto Guerini

Introduction I have been handling the drawings that Francis Bacon gave Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino as a gift since 1997. Over the years — which seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye, as if they weren’t made up of seconds, minutes, hours, days and months — I’ve met with a number of Bacon’s closest friends, and some of the people who knew him personally. These meetings have been documented, and today I have photographs, interviews and recorded conversations of considerable interest, in part included in a number of the exhibitions that have been held in museums and galleries on three continents, eleven different countries and

Francis Bacon, Wheeler’s restaurant, London 1979 Photo by Mario Dondero

thirteen cities since 2009. This documentation also served as inspiration for this essay, a text that reports the facts to which I have been a direct witness. I met David Edwards in 2007. I saw him again in Venice in June 2009, at the first exhibition of the drawings of Francis Bacon, held in Ca’ Zenobio degli Armeni, where he gave a presentation at the inauguration along with several of his friends, including David Marion, one of the trustees for the trust that bears John Edwards’ name. David Edwards has never doubted the authenticity of the drawings Cristiano owns: he recognized them as Francis Bacon’s handiwork right from the first time he saw them, in photographs I showed him. This was October 2007, and we were having lunch together in a restaurant in Suffolk.

When I met David Marion in Venice in June 2009, he had no doubts about their authenticity either: the enraptured look in his eyes as he stared at the drawings for the first time was the best possible expression of his thoughts.

Francis Bacon at 7 Reece Mews, London 1979 Photo by Mario Dondero

Then I met Sir Denis Mahon. We met in London on May 4, 2010 over tea in the cafeteria of the Tate Britain. I remember his searching look, his fingers following the furrows the pencil had dug into the paper, his hands — more than caressing the drawings — handling them. I had seen Giorgio Soavi do the exact same thing before him, studying the pencil marks and abrasions on the papers before offering penetrating and suggestive observations about the personality of the person who made them and his passive homosexuality. In October 2010 I met Horacio de Sosa Cordero: an Argentine Marquis and bon viveur. I visited his house in Buenos Aires and explored the memories it contains. Together we walked down to the Jockey Club, where we enjoyed several dinners together. We met up again in Monte Carlo at his house there, and I saw, hanging on his bedroom wall, the portrait Francis Bacon had made of him when the two were still together. Horacio is a cultured man, strong-willed and extroverted, and is intimately familiar with the people and customs of the art world, as well as the world at large. Finally I met Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser, and Brian and Lyndsay Hayhow. In 1987, Brian Hayhow received a drawing identical in style and signature to those given to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino as a gift from Francis Bacon. Hayhow had become Francis Bacon’s friend, and over the following years the two spent time together, meeting most often at Long Melford in Suffolk, in the house where Bacon lived together with John and David Edwards. Bacon even drew Hayhow’s daughter, portraying her as she got out of the swimming pool at Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser’s house. Brian’s wife Lyn was present on all of these occasions: she too met and spent time with Francis Bacon during those years.

Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser, Maggie to her friends, met Francis Bacon in 1986. She has spoken of a close friendship the two established, one that lasted up until Bacon passed away. “Of course he made drawings,” says Skawinski-Sheaser, with the tone of someone who is commenting on the obvious, of someone who saw Bacon draw all the time. “He was a painter, and he made drawings!” The memories of this extremely select group of friends are valuable testimony: thanks to their input we can bridge gaps that Francis Bacon deliberately created, and which historians who study his art and life have helped consolidate by avoiding or ignoring the truths that are supposed to inspire their work. “Piecing a life together is like a jigsaw puzzle except that a fragment is discovered unexpectedly which does not fit,” wrote Daniel Farson in The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon (Vintage Books, 1994, page 34). “A young woman named Mollie Craven,” continues Daniel Farson, “left college in 1937 and rented a small apartment on the ground floor of a three-story building in Chelsea, at no. 1 Glebe Place, which she herself described as ‘one of the less imposing Victorian streets’ and ‘poor to the point of being an architectural cyst,’ even though the area is fashionable today. A few steps led to the ground floor apartment that opened out onto a courtyard in the back, while above her lived a retired headmaster, and the owner of the building who was a young and ‘slightly eccentric artist’ (who) occupied the top floor where he had his studio. This was Francis Bacon… Mollie was still a young woman, and she held parties in her apartment and played loud music, to the dismay of the tight-laced headmaster. She didn’t invite Francis because ‘he lived his life’ and remained tucked away upstairs, ‘even though we used the same stairs and the same large bathroom. They (the parties) weren’t the kind of thing that he seemed to enjoy. He gave the impression of someone who spent his time working, but he must have had a large circle of friends because he was always receiving baskets full of fruit and wild game. In some ways he was a sort of older brother, and he pointed out just how lacking my high school education had been… We became good friends.” Daniel Farson observes: “Apart from his unaccustomed roles as landlord and ‘elder brother,’ here is interesting confirmation of the continuation of his work; this belies the idea, put about by himself, that after 1933 he just ‘enjoyed’ himself. Doubtless he did that too, but in the daytime he worked hard perfecting the promise shown in the Crucifixion of 1933.” “Mollie Craven does not remember his drawing at an easel, but she has a clear memory of Francis leaning over a pile of paper and making charcoal ‘sketches’, simply ‘roughing them out’. He dropped the heavy, expensive paper on the floor and tore up reams of it, which distressed her. Once a week it was gathered together and dumped... There was one painting which forecast the later work. Mollie Craven saw it on a winter Saturday when she went up to his studio and heard him coughing dreadfully. She followed his voice into the bedroom — ‘a truly frightening room with dark blue walls and ceiling, with a vast mural of a crucified arm across the opposite wall — enough, I felt, to induce a fever’. She had the feeling it was based on Dürer’s Crucifixion, though, it may have been inspired by Grünewald’s Crucifixion of 1515 from the Isenheim altarpiece, which had a strong influence both on Francis and on Graham’s Crucifixion for St Matthew’s church in Northampton. ‘The whole was an enormous left arm with the nails in it, and just a hint of torso, pointing towards the window. The body was virtually cut off by the chimneypiece. A tortured bedroom if ever there was one.’” Brian, Lyn and Maggie echo Mollie Craven’s testimony, and together confirm the truth of each other’s individual accounts, tales that are bound together today, fifty years later, by a single common denominator:

they provide proof that Francis Bacon, beginning in 1927, dedicated himself to working as an artist with passion, commitment and careful study, creating his unmistakable personal style through drawings and experimenting with a wide variety of techniques: the mural inspired by the crucifixion described by Mollie Craven is proof positive, and perfectly in line with the desire to create a fresco dedicated to the same subject that Bacon shared with Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino in the last years of his life. Francis Bacon made drawings: this is a fact that no one can refute. The enormous interests that have kept this truth from emerging in all its clarity up until today would do well to recognize it, then consider employing some method other than calumny and slander to defend their own interests.

Sir Denis Mahon I met with Sir Denis Mahon at four in the afternoon on May 4, 2010, in the cafeteria at the Tate Britain. As many people know, Sir Denis is the professor who “discovered” Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, often referred to as “Il Guercino.” Sir Denis is also an important scholar for the Carraccis, Guido Reni, Caravaggio and Poussin, but he has dedicated his life’s work to Il Guercino. The meeting was set up by Daniele Biancardi, city spokesperson for the arts in Cento, where Il Guercino was born and lived, for two reasons for a precise aim. The two reasons were two events that were scheduled to take place shortly thereafter: an exhibition entitled Guercino — Bacon. I disegni (Guercino — Bacon. The Drawings), which would open on July 12; and Sir Denis Mahon’s birthday the following November 8, when he would turn 100 years old. The aim was to invite Sir Mahon to Cento, where they wanted to celebrate his life and achievements. I felt enormously curious upon entering the Tate: for me, Sir Denis Mahon was an abstract character, a sort of icon who was difficult to imagine in flesh and blood. Entering the cafeteria on the right, I could see a small group of people who had just come in. The first one I met was Nicholas Turner, a student of Sir Denis and his heir apparent. Later, on May 12, I would see Nicholas Turner again in Bologna, where we ate together at Il Pappagallo. He was the one who told me the story of the Bella Principessa (The Beautiful Princess), and the methods people had used to attribute that work to Leonardo da Vinci, recommending use of the same method in order to obtain definitive recognition of the Francis Bacon drawings. That’s precisely what I did, inviting the wrath of those critics who expect to enjoy exclusive “powers of authentication” for artworks through the exclusive use of their critical “eye.” Art critics form a powerful lobby, one closely connected with the world’s main gallery owners and, through them, engaged in a direct relationship with the art market. And as everyone knows, billions and billions of dollars move through that market every year. But that’s a whole other story. Nicholas Turner was accompanied by his wife Jane, as well as two other people: Sir Denis Mahon and a lady who seemed to follow his very thoughts, and even proved diligent enough to anticipate a few.

We sat at the table that had been prepared for us and began an encounter that proved rich in emotion. Daniele Biancardi knew both Sir Denis Mahon and the lady who had accompanied him: he had set up the meeting with her and had already spoken with the woman about the Guercino — Bacon exhibition and the idea of celebrating the famous critic’s one hundredth birthday during the closing ceremonies scheduled for his birthday on November 8.

Dino Cura, Daniele Biancardi, Sir Denis Mahon, Denis Mahon’s assistant, Umberto Guerini Tate Britain, May 4, 2010

I was asked to explain more fully the reasons why I’d chosen to compare the work of two painters who lived so many centuries apart. I began my explanation by citing a passage from Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino I’d published in my book, The Tip of an Iceberg, and which Italian art critic Vittorio Sgarbi had repeated in the introduction he’d written for the Guercino — Bacon exhibition, published in the exhibition catalogue under the title An Impossible Dialogue. Cristiano said: “This might also seem strange, but one of the things he wanted to see… he got very angry later because he couldn’t… were Guercino’s demonic drawings, which were very nearby. The Rusconi Marquises had these extraordinary drawings. Whoever saw them might really almost think that Bacon did them. Guercino drew cancer patients, with terrible faces, that are in the collection of the Rusconi Marquises. There was an objection: and what did he know of this? I don’t know, either, but he was a very cultured person and he went to Denis Mahon’s exhibition… <…> The exhibition of Guercino’s demonic drawings was done two years before in London, as Monte San Pietro a Calderino. Cristiano’s statement finds confirmation in a drawing by Francis Bacon exhibited in Cento that is a copy of a drawing by Guercino found in the collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, conserved in Windsor Castle (see The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen at Windsor Castle (The Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen), by Denis Mahon — Nicholas Turner). In the same introduction, Vittorio Sgarbi went on to write, “And it is true that we can establish a parallel with Guercino’s grotesque head and enormous eyes on display in the Royal Library in Windsor Castle — disturbing testimony to Guercino’s expressive liberty — though such a comparison is hard to establish through direct derivation.”

“Something must have induced Bacon to concentrate his attentions on the drawing, as if codifying a posteriori a method of vision. In Bacon’s case, the drawing does not precede, but rather follows the original artwork.”

Guercino, Windsor, Royal collection

Francis Bacon from Guercino

One more drawing may have been derived from Guercino’s grotesque head. When looking at the drawing below, it is easy to find a strong likeness with the next Francis Bacon drawing.

Guercino, London, Miss Armide Oppé collection

Francis Bacon from Guercino

Sir Denis Mahon and Nicholas Turner wanted to hear more. I continued, telling them the story of the drawings Francis Bacon had given as gifts to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, and the long-term relationship the two men had enjoyed before that. I won’t waste time repeating here things that have already been addressed elsewhere, in this case in my book The Tip of an Iceberg: The Drawings of Francis Bacon, and in the exhibition catalogues published for the various exhibitions of the drawings held from 2009 onwards on three different continents.

The story is so completely unusual that each time I tell it, I’m reminded of my grandmother. In the 1950s I lived together with my parents in a large house in the mountains, in the Apennines between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, in a small town called Vidiciatico. I remember we had a large kitchen with an enormous fireplace that took up one entire wall at the back. In the evenings, a number of my grandmother’s friends would come for a “get-together” with her: they all sat down in front of the fire and began threading bunches of wool they brought with them, handling the spindle with dexterous skill that left me enchanted. They wore long, broad black dresses because they had all become widows some time ago, with white hairs sticking out from underneath the handkerchiefs they all wore on their heads. They didn’t seem like witches, and they weren’t, but they all practiced “white” magic as old ladies did back then, mixing medicinal herbs that had been used for centuries up in the mountains (and elsewhere as well) to cure maladies of the body and soul. My grandmother’s friends captivated me not only for their skill in working the spindle, but especially for their talents in storytelling. Whenever I tell the story of Cristiano and Francis, I feel like I’m echoing my grandmother and her friends: I know the story is true, but at the same time I realize it has taken on the characteristics of a fairytale. Should I avoid saying that? Why? The fact that the story of a piece of life shared by two people seems like a fairytale neither subtracts from nor adds to the truth of what happened, although there’s no doubt that it highlights how reality can often prove more attractive than fiction. At the end of my story I took out a folder I’d brought with me containing several of Francis Bacon’s drawings and showed them first to Nicholas Turner and then to Sir Denis Mahon. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the gestures and penetrating gaze of that elderly art historian as he looked over the drawings. But more than his gaze staring at the papers — turning right here, then left, up to the top and then back down at the bottom in order to appreciate the effects of light on the graphite and understand, through the reflections, the way the drawing had been created — I was struck by his fingers. Like knotty tree branches, Sir Denis Mahon’s fingers followed the lines drawn on the papers, stopping here and there to evaluate the wounds and furrows the pencil had made. His fingers and hands moved around both above and beneath the paper in order to determine the force with which Bacon had driven the pencil and made his marks. These were hands that possessed their own autonomous awareness, and anyone could see that they were accustomed to transmitting even more profound information to the critic’s brain than that supplied by his eyes. Sir Denis didn’t say a word about the drawings. But there is no doubt in my mind that he would never have written the letter he sent to the Cento municipality shortly thereafter if he hadn’t understood with his eyes, hands and fingers that those drawings were made by Francis Bacon. Unfortunately the man’s poor health prevented him from attending the exhibition and, just a few months after the exhibition ended, Sir Denis Mahon passed away. You can’t say he’d been a friend of Francis Bacon. But there’s no doubt he knew the artist well, and that art events around London brought the two together more often than anyone suspected. Vittorio Sgarbi, who read the letter before he wrote the introductory essay to the Guercino — Bacon exhibition, concluded by writing:

“It was Sir Denis Mahon who, looking over the Bacon drawings, remembered having met the man at ancient art exhibitions, of having observed him with curiosity in order to comprehend his affinity with the artworks.

Sir Denis Mahon’s letter to the Municipality of Cento, Guercino — Bacon. The Drawings,12 July — 8 November 2010

Now these drawings, probably a posteriori, attempt to indicate a method in the elaboration of the painting. But this is separate from drawing. Everything is contained in the gesture, in the uncontrolled rapture, in the intention to disfigure, to overcome every limitation, in a contrast between closed and open forms, the former for the faces and the second for the bodies. In the drawings, on the other hand, the form appears closed first and foremost in the portraits, for a call to order, perhaps even for the need to take back up that which seemed lost, in the sudden gesture of the hand that paints. The drawings are composed, at times even definitive, as cannot happen with Caravaggio (who never made drawings), unlike Guercino.

Something must have happened, some experience must have been transmitted, if it is true that Sir Denis Mahon stated that he was aware of Bacon’s trips to Italy, of his inevitable interest in Guercino’s drawings, and especially those displaying the caricatures and deformities in faces disfigured by illness. If this is true, this unpublished and rare reservoir of drawings should be the object of curiosity and a reason to bet on a painter at once classical and passionate and instinctive. In reality, Bacon proceeds on a path that suggests neither a past nor future, that does not admit a comparison, not even with a grand maestro of signs like Guercino. Elsewhere it could be called into question. Here it appears evident. Bacon’s artwork remains closed up in a self-contained shell that does not need to let itself be contaminated and the drawings prove this in an eloquent manner.”

Horacio de Sosa Cordero 1) Horacio Cordero, the 10th Marquis de Sosa, is an Argentine painter and sculptor. Cordero was born in Buenos Aires on June 29, 1945, into an aristocratic Castilian family that can trace its family roots all the way back to the 14th century. The only son of Don Rodolfo Maria de Sosa Cordero and Doña Ángela Marcó del Pont, Cordero studied at the Jesuit school in Buenos Aires, where he quickly discovered his talent for making art. In 1965, when he was 20, Cordero moved to Paris, where he became friends with Alberto and Diego Giacometti, Francis Bacon and David Sylvester. In 1986, David Sylvester wrote of him: “Within the adventure that is contemporary art, the interest in Horacio Cordero’s painting and sculpture is, first and foremost, due to the masterful execution visible in his artwork. Cordero is an artist who is intimately familiar with the work of a painter and the secrets of sculpture. It doesn’t matter what object he is dealing with in his artwork: landscapes, figures, portraits, still-lifes, interiors or compositions. It all seems true. Like a talented actor, the artist’s execution is always ‘right.’ Horacio Cordero, like his friends Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti, is an outsider in the world of art. A solitary artist who has not joined any single avant-garde movement. His figurative painting, if we can call it thus, reigns over and dominates action painting, and the masterful series that he created in the atelier of his dear friend Francis Bacon (7 Reece Mews) in London in 1984 proves it.” (Atelier Francis Bacon, di Horacio Cordero, London (1984), by David Sylvester, Editoriale Euroarte, 1985.) Horacio de Sosa Cordero is included among the artists that make up the Transavanguardia (the Italian Transavantgarde), along with others including Chia, Clemente, Palladino and De Maria.

2) Cordero enjoyed a very close relationship with Francis Bacon, as can be demonstrated by the many photographs showing the two together over the years, including in Bacon’s studio in Reece Mews, where (as is common knowledge) only Bacon’s closest and most intimate friends were allowed to enter. Cordero knows John Edwards, whom he met on more than one occasion in London along with Francis Bacon. Over the years, the Marquis’ life became closely intertwined with theirs, to the extent that, when Francis Bacon died in Madrid in April 1992, John Edwards called Cordero and asked him to accompany him to identify the body. Cordero recognized his friend’s body, and handled all the various formalities necessary to bring Francis Bacon’s ashes back to London for burial.

right: Francis Bacon in his studio, 7 Reece Mews Photo by Horacio de Sosa Cordero

Francis Bacon sitting in front of Study of the Human Body, 1982 Photo by Horacio de Sosa Cordero

3) In October 2010 Cordero was in Buenos Aires, his home town, although the Marquis continues to divide most of his time in Europe, between Paris and Monte Carlo. In Buenos Aires, where he returns at least once a year, Cordero still has a beautiful home in the city’s most elegant neighborhood. The previous owner of his home was Aristotle Onassis, one of Cordero’s many international friends. Those who know the man best underline just how interested he is in the international art scene, as well as in people and life in general. He was a close friend of Giacometti, and has enjoyed friendships with many other internationally-recognized artists. Francis Bacon was such a close friend of Cordero’s that Bacon painted him in a portrait that he then gave Cordero as a gift. In October (2010), at the Espacio Multiarte — SIGEN in Buenos Aires, an exhibition featuring forty drawings by Francis Bacon was underway. The exhibition was entitled The Tip of the Iceberg and was curated by Edward Lucie-Smith and Massimo Scaringella with the patronage of the Presidency of the Argentine Republic and Banca Nazionale. The drawings all came from Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino’s collection, and had already been exhibited in the same city at the Borges Cultural Center from June 30 through August 19, 2010. The show’s considerable success with the general public and critics alike drove its organizers to keep it open and running in other exhibition spaces, and the SIGEN was one of the most prestigious in the area.

Horacio came to the show, saw the drawings and recognized them as the work of Francis Bacon. He spoke with Walter Santoro, director of the Industrias Culturales Argentina and the executive organizer of the exhibition, asking Santoro if it would be possible for him to examine the drawings up close. This meeting resulted in the idea to hold a press conference “on the life and work of Francis Bacon,” scheduled for October 21, 2010. Here, in synthesis, is the news as it was reported in the Argentine press:

a) “A day that will go down in history…” “A day that will go down in history…” This could well be the defining title for a press conference that was organized on October 21, 2010 by the Industrias Culturales Argentina and the Sindicatura General de la Nación, in the rooms of which forty extraordinary drawings by Francis Bacon and part of the Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino collection have been on display for a week now in the exhibition The Tip of the Iceberg, curated by Edward Lucie-Smith and Massimo Scaringella. The collection, the (already proven) authenticity of which has been at the center of court proceedings that have been going on for a decade now, is made up of finished drawings that are both intense and essential: true artworks that are the product of interior reflection, a gaze through which Francis Bacon looks inside himself, in what was almost the last stage of his life. What makes this day unique is not only the fact that we are given the chance to discover never-before-seen drawings, nor that they have been placed on display for the first time ever in Buenos Aires and anywhere in Latin America (eds: in reality, the drawings had already been exhibited at the Centro Cultural Borges). What which makes this day unique is the fact that we can see them through the eyes of a man who was one of Bacon’s closest friends, one of the few friends that the painter “could count on the fingers of one hand”; a friend with whom the painter shared adventures, games, art, joy and unhappiness; the same friend who was called to identify the painter’s body when he died one night in 1992, in Madrid. This man is the internationally recognized writer, painter and sculptor Horacio de Sosa Cordero. “Purely by chance I came face-to-face with my friend, and I spoke first and foremost to myself about these traces he left behind, artwork that I’d never seen before and which had ultimately come to light: artwork that deserves a place in the best museums in the world, for the delight of visitors everywhere,” stated Sosa Cordero. Through careful examination of each drawing, Horacio confronted the work and personality of Francis Bacon, spoke about their friendship, which had lasted for more than forty years, and opened a window for us on the life of one of the most brilliant artists of the 20th century. Together with Francis Bacon, Sosa Cordero made this day an “almost historic event.”

b ) Conversation with Horacio de Sosa Cordero. You were extremely close friends with Francis Bacon — proof can be seen in your photographs. How did this friendship start, and how would you describe Bacon? I first met Francis in the 1960s, when he was a young artist living in London. A mutual friend, David Sylvester, introduced us. It was the start of a great friendship. What was Bacon like? Well, he was enigmatic, unpredictable, and gifted with extraordinary charisma… not to mention extremely touchy, especially when people asked him questions he didn’t like. For example, he refused to talk about painting, except when it came to the great artists he admired: Velasquez, Picasso or our friend Alberto Giacometti.

He was enigmatic, antisocial, hot-tempered… He embodied all sorts of extremes in a single person: he could make a scandal in front of the Queen of England or act like a consummate gentleman and paladin for a poor vagabond. Most of all he was a great friend to his friends. Now that I’m admiring this late self-portrait of his, created in 1980, I’m reminded of a time I once asked him: “Francis, why do you always do so many self-portraits?” He responded: “What would you have me paint? I don’t have a lot of people to paint, I don’t know that many people. Furthermore, with this puddingface of mine…at least I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

Horacio de Sosa Cordero and Umberto Guerini in front of a drawing of Francis Bacon

The authentication of Francis Bacon’s drawings, including those on display for this exhibition, has been the object of controversy for more than ten years, especially since for years people have been saying Bacon never made drawings. What do you think about all this? First of all, it’s not a question of opinion. I won’t comment on the attribution of these drawings to Bacon, given that “attributing” implies not being completely sure. Here — and this is a fact — we’re looking at drawings done by Bacon. This is unquestionable, just as it’s unquestionable that Bacon made drawings. I believe that the enormous confusion surrounding his drawings was created by the art critic and mediocre artist Michael Ayrton, who wrote an article for the magazine Burlington Review of Art in which he affirmed that Bacon didn’t know how to draw. One day Bacon ran into this artist on the street, grabbed him and rather threateningly growled, “What the hell do you know about whether I draw or not?” Of course Bacon drew. It’s just that most of the drawings he made he stored inside folders (he couldn’t show them to people because of the contracts he’d signed with certain galleries), or he just ripped them up, or he abandoned them inside his atelier in London. I had the privilege of spending time in Bacon’s atelier whenever I was invited, along with a very few other privileged guests; individuals who could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Bacon’s artwork is expressionist by nature. His portraits are dominated by his particular way of looking at mankind, immersed in his difficulties and conflicts. The same elements can be seen in his drawings, through points and deformations that illustrate the drama and luminosity that crisscross the human soul.

With respect to the thesis put forth by English art critic John Richardson, according to whom a lack of formal academic training made Francis Bacon incapable of drawing, I would respond that it’s simply not true he wasn’t able to draw. It is obvious, and the proof is right here under our noses, that he knew how to draw and draw well, even though for both personal and commercial reasons Bacon decided not to reveal his skill to the general public. With respect to the drawings themselves, Bacon created several hundred that we might call his “secret drawings,” just as there are secret drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarrotti or Caravaggio.

Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino with Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser and a guest at the Francis Bacon Drawings exhibition at The Gallery in Cork Street, London, February 2012

These are drawings he gave as gifts to his friends or his lovers. In this case, Ravarino is the depositary of all these drawings that Bacon made both in his London atelier and in Bologna, Venice or wherever else went during the many visits he made to Italy. I am honored to have the chance to admire Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino’s collection, to examine these “secret drawings.” This is an exhibition that could easily be put on display in any important international museum like the Metropolitan Museum, Tate Gallery or the Louvre. But instead it is here, in Buenos Aires, and this is a first for Latin America.

Do any drawings in particular from this collection stand out for you above the others? First of all, I’d like to emphasize that these are drawings made on the fly, with extremely quick execution, and from which emerges a reflection on his artwork, a return to Bacon’s perennial themes: self-portraits and portraits; Crucifixions; Popes… Velasquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X is one of the constants of Bacon’s artwork, given that his first painting of this subject dates from 1947. This drawing in particular, created between 1970 and 1980, is a masterful work in which we can see the influence of his earlier painting, as can be appreciated in the rest of the collection: the nervous character of his lines, the deformations, the simplicity of the composition, the atmosphere of the drawings, the suggestions…

This reminds me of a time when I asked him about his artwork, and he told me, “Horacio, first and foremost my artwork consists of a game, of a gamble. Of pure intuition. Gameplay, chance, shapes created in order to capture an appearance with the impulse of sensations.” Those are Bacon’s words.

Could we say that Bacon’s artwork is immersed in irrational feelings, in forces battling one another, in intuitions, destiny and doubt? Francis Bacon was always immersed in fate, as he himself stated. All of his friends and lovers died, one after the other. And so Bacon, day by day, was left alone. For this reason, in his enigmatic life, he always said, “I am surrounded by death.” I’m one of Bacon’s few friends who was still alive. He loved life, playing, parties, good restaurants, drinking, good times and bars… For example, I remember one time when he went on his first trip with me to Madrid. “Horacio, take me to Spain,” he said. And so we went, because he loved bullfights. He was in London, and I was in Paris, so we met up directly in Madrid. After that trip he returned often to Madrid, each time going to visit the Museo del Prado in order to look at works by some of his favorite painters: Goya, Velasquez and Picasso. During his last trip to Madrid in 1992 he suffered a heart attack, and they put him in a clinic… Thus Bacon, who was not religious and never went to church, wound up in a clinic run by monks… and that’s where he died. John Edward called me in Paris and I went to Madrid to identify the body and handle all the paperwork that has to be dealt with in these circumstances, all those unpleasant and sad things, especially when it’s about a friend. I am one of the few friends he had who is still alive.

How would you describe this collection of Bacon drawings? Why is it important? These drawings are of exceptional importance for art, and I’m sure they’ll open new routes for young artists. They are important not only for their quality and technical execution, but because they were produced during the last period of Francis Bacon’s artistic activity. He drew them at the end of a reflection, touching upon all the artwork he’d produced over the course of his life. I want to share a few of Bacon’s words with you, because for Bacon painting — or drawing — was a game. So I’ll answer you by quoting Francis: “All of art is a sort of game that mankind uses to distract himself. And it’s important to note that it’s always been this way: absolutely a game. Nevertheless I think that, within this sentiment, something has changed, and that is truly fascinating is that this game will be more difficult for an artist; it will pull him in even deeper in order to be able to separate something good from the rest of it.” Those are Bacon’s words, and they amount to an important lesson for young artists and for the adventures of artwork in the 21st century. (ARSOmnibus, Novedades Sigen, October 30, 2010)

5 ) Interview with the painter Horacio de Sosa Cordero. Wednesday, June 20, 2012. On June 20, 2012 in Prague, at the Gate Gallery, where an exhibition of the artwork of Francis Bacon and Bohumil Hrabal was on display, a press conference on Francis Bacon’s drawings was held. Participants in the press conference included Edward Lucie-Smith, Ambra Draghetti and Umberto Guerini. Horacio de Sosa Cordero was invited, and promised he would attend, but was called away unexpectedly and could not participate. But he sent a text he’d written for the exhibition, and which was subsequently published in the art magazine ARTE. “It is a great honor for me to have the opportunity to talk about two great artists of the 20th century, the painter and my great friend Francis Bacon, and the extraordinary Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. Although the two never met, both admired one another, and if they had met they would have undoubtedly been friends. These two ‘fatalists’ — Francis, with his homosexuality, Bohumil Hrabal, with the forbidden word, living under a communist regime, but still capable of writing magnificent novels like Closely Observed Trains, I Served the King of England, and Too Loud a Solitude. But though it was not possible for the two to meet in real life, they are finally given an opportunity to be together in this magnificent exhibition organized by the Gate Gallery. I met Francis Bacon in the 1960s after being introduced by a mutual friend, the art critic David Sylvester, who was a great friend of Bacon. This marked the beginning of a long friendship, one that lasted for over 40 years. I could tell you so many stories about Francis that I could practically write a book. We were together in London, Madrid, Monte Carlo and Paris, and sometimes another mutual friend and great artist Alberto Giacometti joined us for our long talks. Francis Bacon was a great guy and a wonderful friend among friends, of which there were not many. Very few people frequented his studio in London on a daily basis: Peter Beard, whenever he came back from one of his photographic safaris in Africa; David Sylvester; Lucian Freud; George Dyer; and I. Years later John Edwards, who sometimes arrived from Italy accompanied by a young, very friendly Bologna journalist named Ravarino. Francis Bacon toured Italy together with Ravarino, visiting Rome, Sicily, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Bologna, Tuscany and other Italian cities. As I said before, we were just friends who got together at Bacon’s studio at 7 Reece Mews, in the South Kensington district. The studio was always a big mess, full of eclectic objects, empty cardboard boxes, bottles of good Petrus wine or Krug or Cristal champagne, assorted rags, an old cashmere sweater that Bacon sometimes used on his artworks, adding texture. Then there were books, photos and endless knick-knacks, as well as a folder full of his drawings — some early works, others projects for decorations, others torn, or bent, or destroyed, but which he kept nonetheless. Among his countless drawings were also some small things that may have served as early sketches for other works. In the 1980s in Paris, Bacon showed me some of his drawings and collages. The Marlborough Gallery in London, which represented Bacon’s work at that time but would later become embroiled in disputes with Bacon’s heir, John Edwards, was not in favor of Bacon’s work with drawings, mixed media or collages… Perhaps they were jealous that the artist sold the work to another dealer. The truth is that Francis Bacon began to make periodic trips to Italy, where things were quiet and he was away from the watchful eyes of Gilbert Lloyd, or his sister Angela or Pierre Levin, his right-hand man in NYC, today director of the gallery. Then he would eagerly dedicate himself to drawing, as well as producing collages and mixed media, some of which can be seen on display at the Gate Gallery in Prague, and many of which represent his magnificent series of Popes, in addition to studio portraits, or compositions, some of which I saw in his atelier in Paris.

Francis Bacon was involved in his relationship with Ravarino, his ‘man in Italy,’ a companion, lover and the inheritor of these magnificent works that I would call ‘the major works from Francis Bacon’s secret period in Italy.’ For it was all in secret. Why? Why all these secrets? During his last years, Francis Bacon did not trust his dealer in London, even though he was still connected with them through the good Ms. Beston, who worked in the gallery and was Bacon’s private secretary, managing the artist’s disorderly life. She was the reason Francis Bacon did not end his relationship completely with his London dealer. But he wanted to let the world see… his last words. And thus begins this magnificent series of more than 900 artworks on paper, for which the Francis Bacon Drawing Foundation has prepared a catalogue raisonné of his work. Extraordinary works created by my very good friend, the great artist Francis Bacon.”

Brian Hayhow, Lyndsay Hayhow and Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser 1) Brian Hayhow is a medical doctor who lives in Sudbury, in Suffolk, England, together with his wife Lyndsay, who is a barrister at 3 Temple Gardens Chambers in London.

A drawing donated to Brian Hayhow by Francis Bacon in 1988

Francis Bacon Photo by Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser

In 1988 John Edwards, who was suffering from acute appendicitis and was being cared for in London, was rushed to the hospital in Suffolk where Brian was working, and who operated Edwards to cure his peritonitis. David Edwards notified Francis about his brother’s sudden hospitalization, informing him about the seriousness of the situation. Francis raced to the hospital in Suffolk in order to be close to a person with whom he shared an intimate bond.

Brian and Francis met for the first time during that visit, and remained friends from then until Francis’s death in 1992, often spending time together in the farm in Dale where Francis and John lived. Brian and Lyndsay were invited to Dale shortly after John was released from the hospital, to attend a party celebrating his full recovery. On that occasion, Francis gave Brian one of his drawings and a catalogue from one of his exhibitions as gifts. Brian remembers a large table covered with books, magazines and drawings; he remembers that Francis picked up a drawing and a catalogue and gave them to him saying, “it’s nothing… I’m grateful to you… thank you for having saved me.” Brian was embarrassed, but also deeply moved and happy. On another occasion, during a party held at Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser’s home, Francis made a drawing of Brian and Lyndsay’s twelve-year-old daughter as she was getting out of the swimming pool, then gave the drawing to the couple as a gift. Brian and Lyndsay had this to say about Francis Bacon’s drawings: “For Francis Bacon it was normal to draw, and it’s nonsense to insist otherwise. He drew with crayons, felt-tips, Biro pens, pencils. We saw him at Dale Farm where, connected to a stone pathway that went down from the main house, there was a cottage, surrounded by trees, where Francis worked. The room he worked in was full of drawings: in folders, spread out all around, paper abandoned in baskets and on the floor. We saw piles of drawings, but we never thought anything particular about it because Francis was a painter. The drawings were similar in style to the ones Francis gave us, but they were all different sizes. We didn’t look to see if they were signed or not: there were drawings and there were paintings. There were a lot of drawings, and tons of paper…” 2) Today Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser lives in London at 62 Nutbrook Street. There are numerous photographs that show her together with Francis Bacon and John Edwards. Margaret, or “Maggie,” met John Edwards and Francis Bacon in 1986 when, together with her husband Hamish, she moved to Suffolk. From that moment forward, both Margaret and her husband became good friends with Edwards and Bacon. They met John first, who invited them to a party he was having at Dale Farm, where he lived. There, during the party, Margaret and her husband first met Francis Bacon, who was already a wellknown painter. Margaret shared an odd detail about the occasion, talking about her husband Hamish, who was not particularly interested in the art world. During the party, while talking to Francis, Hamish asked the artist what he did for a living and Francis told him that he was a painter. Hamish asked: “A painter of fine art?” And Francis answered yes. Hamish asked him if he managed to make a living of it. “Yes, yes, just about,” responded Francis.

That was the first time they met the man, and therefore the episode made a deep impression on Margaret. This was also because, as she was careful to point out, she had met a person who was not at all full of himself, but easygoing and approachable. Francis also became good friends with Hamish, even though the man had had no idea who Francis was when they met (or perhaps precisely because of this). From that moment forward, their friendship became deeper and more solid. “I was living in Suffolk,” states Margaret, “so we often got together at Dale Farm. Francis often invited me over for lunch, both in Suffolk and in London. We were very close, both with John and with Francis: in London we often went to eat at Bibendum, which was Francis’s favorite restaurant at the time. I’ve seen Francis’s drawings and I’ve seen him draw. I’ve seen lots of his drawings, I couldn’t say how many, but lots. I’ve seen drawings on paper, on napkins and on other things. He used to draw all the time.”

Francis Bacon with Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser

Margaret remembers clearly the drawing that Francis Bacon made of Lyndsay and Brian Hayhow’s daughter, portraying the girl as she was getting out of the swimming pool at her house. “Francis was always drawing, especially when he was at the farm. So yes, I’ve seen those drawings. I’ve seen him draw.” When asked how many drawings she had seen, Margaret responded, “Quite a few. Quite a few. I don’t know how many, because we’re talking about a period of… I don’t know… six years? Seven years? Whatever it was…1986 until when he died, so it was about six years, wasn’t it? …Yes, I do remember when he did die, actually. I happened to be in my car, driving through Trafalgar Square, when I knew that he’s… you know, by telephone. So yes, you know, I’ve seen a number of his drawings. But they’re all…

of this style.” (Indicates the drawing on the table in front of her, which was the one Francis Bacon gave Brian Hayhow as a gift.) I asked her, “But can you tell if… he used to draw?” “Yes! Of course he did. He was an artist. You know?” Then I laughed and said, “That’s fantastic! Did you know that for a long time, for all of Francis’s life, he said that he never drew!” “Did he?” asked Margaret. “Yes,” I said. “Well he never said that to me…” said Margaret. “No, no, no… I’ve seen him draw on, you know, paper napkins and things. I’ve seen him draw, you know? I mean, to be honest with you, I’ve never seen him make a big thing about this. But of course he used to draw…”

Francis Bacon, Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser and friends

These comments from Brian Hayhow, Lyndsay Hayhow and Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser are more important than everything else that has been written to date about Francis Bacon and his drawing: they are simply the best essay about his drawing practices that could have been written. One last observation: the signature and graphic marks and signs that appear on the drawing that Francis Bacon gave Brian Hayhow as a gift in 1988 are identical to those that appear on each of the drawings that are part of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino’s collection. What sort of explanations will the people who have done their utmost to call into question the authenticity of these drawings come up with now?

Francis Bacon Photo by Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser

HAPPY SAD MEMORIES OF BELOVED FRANCIS BACON Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino

If someone doubts what you know to be true, you may then ask what could be a test of your good faith and you become aware that, as said by Calderon de la Barca, “life is a dream sometimes dreamed by others” and that reality is not what you have actually lived, but what the so-called “experts” wish to decide you’ve lived. For most people, Francis Bacon was simply the greatest artist of his time. To me, he was much more than that. He was the most poignant, kind, deep human being that I had ever met. There was a time when I was so naïve, simple and ignorant, I used to hope that one day someone in England would have been grateful to me for inspiring the greatest painter of our time to make drawings which were equal to his better known work… with all due respect for important chapters such as the Spender/Pollock collection of drawings and the so-called Barry Joule archive. I wonder how those sketches, albeit quite interesting but certainly made in a few seconds, could support Bacon’s claim to be the last modern renaissance artist in a culture where drawing had to be at the same level as painting, indeed quite often, even better… as were often those of Leonardo or Michelangelo, his ideal Master. Some experts claim my story is strange, but let me respectfully say that the real oddness, the real eccentricity would have been if the greatest painter of the 20th century had been the most clumsy, not to say ridiculous draughtsman, if the only sketches he left behind were the Joule and Spender items. What has stunned me in these years is that many people, many experts have shown their skepticism although they have never seen the original sketches, or at least they have seen very few of them. They were and indeed remain, doubtful, like iconic Talebans who rewrite the Koran (the Koran being Francis), even if only some pages are sacrilegious. Then follows the suspicious, yet understandable, question of why he gave me the drawings. Well, apart from the sentimental side of the story, which I don’t want to bother you with (but would like to point out that, alas, thirty years have passed, yet thirty kilograms more, on the contrary, have arrived around my waistline), my answer is very simple: though I’m sorry to seem haughty or presumptuous, I was the most informed person Francis Bacon ever met. I’m not talking only about Italianity, Michelangelo, Venice, Versace, wine, spaghetti etcetera. I’m talking (again sorry to emphasize my role), about the fact that I’ve been (for example) the only journalist in Europe who succeeded in interviewing the Dublin Fighting Volunteers, who were the most dangerous secret killing section of the Irish Republican Army, and when Margaret Thatcher offended the painter by describing him as ”that dreadful man with those horrible paintings,” I was the only one who was able to comfort him by revealing to him that during her time as a prime minister she was charged (obviously a confidential investigation) with the suspicion of corruption during the Falklands War by the arms factory who

sponsored her election. He was obsessed with the Secret Service, plots and criminal power. It is not very well known that he wrote to one of the most terrifying English serial killers for years… a watercolour of whom (one of the very few things hung in Reece Mews) he presented to me. He was also very close to one of the most famous London gangsters Dave Courtney (who has now become a security expert) and in that period I was the only journalist, together with the great Lino Jannuzzi, able to interview Michele Greco who was, in that period, believed to be the REAL Godfather. Confidentially he asked me to visit him in jail and present him with a drawing. The painter was struck to learn that his nickname was Il Papa, The Pope, and how the drawing had been stolen by his lawyer and how this lawyer was afterwards in total despair… as Greco’s wife, Concetta, told me over a taped phone conversation some time later. It is almost impossible to believe had it not been documented but, believe me, I had many things with which to arouse the painter’s colossal curiosity. Perhaps the greatest problem resides in the fact that many of those who adore Francis and consider him a genius subconsciously despise his life; a life apparently dedicated to preying upon weaker people, failures, people of little account. He was always manipulated by others. However, it is possible that he manipulated the truth to such a point as to have hidden from everyone for nearly twenty years that he was also a great draughtsman, which perhaps they already subconsciously suspected. The problem is that things are exactly the contrary. Francis was passionate but not instinctive. He was immensely generous but only towards those he loved. He liked to be swept along by the current but only if he approved of the direction. It arose for example when accommodated for many years by the French family Boquentin. He was treated as a son, but he never mentioned that long period to anyone. Ingratitude did not create any real problems for someone who disliked to surfacing in a placid bourgeois atmosphere. For the same reason, he confessed his love for John Edwards to the world which he had carefully hidden for decades while regularly visiting him, his family and his cousin every week in Long Melford where he sang karaoke, understood as a credit card works, played cards… one thing is universal love and the other its grey routine. Nobody knew, or almost nobody, of his secret lover who inspired the famous painting Triptych 71. Also, had I not discovered the photographs of the Spanish Lover on a little lost Sicilian island (but as you have done, Jesus Rodriguez, the art editor of El País, asked me, “we have tried to find these photos for years, how is it possible? ” The simple answer is that Francis told me where they were!), nobody would have ever seen a single image of José Capello. Well then, was Francis able to hide entire parts of his life for banal psychological reasons and would he not have been able to hide what he almost illegally donated to me (Marlborough would certainly not have agreed), his most important works after the paintings? I used to say that his drawings were a great gesture of love to me but that they were also, not to say above all, a sharp, evil, revenge regarding everyone… because the sad truth is that we all disappointed Francis. His family deserted him for utterly insane reasons when he was little more than a child. The Marlborough Gallery, whose promotional genius in Francis’s career I don’t want to undervalue and yet his relationship with which deteriorated to the extent that at the end of his seventh decade he had the intention of changing galleries. However, as we know they did not, to use a great euphemism, “allow” him to. Even his greatest love, John Edwards, never left his life companion Phil Morgue, a brilliant, merciless, tough guy who only ever considered Francis as his own personal profit machine. Those who believe they understand the life of Francis Bacon well, would have (like myself) had to have received telephone calls during which Francis was crying and completely upset, confiding in me that John had disappeared with Phil on an expensive

holiday paid for by Francis himself and had not received a single telephone call for weeks. I disappointed him myself, when thirty years ago I met him at the Balthus farewell party in Villa Medici in Rome and I refused to go to and live with him in London. During the years since then, I’ve transformed myself from a kind of learned Peter Pan, as I once was, into a kind of resentful whale as, alas, I have become. The main question people ask me is: “How is it possible he gave you hundreds of drawings?” (they generally pronounce “hundreds” like it is a blasphemy). Well, Picasso left about sixty thousand drawings and the Barry Joule archive contains more than one thousand of them, we have been told… I’m aware these are complete works and not hurried sketches, but in Francis’ biographies there are testimonies stating that he used to say he was able to finish a triptych (I emphasize a triptych) in TWO WEEKS. He told me he was able to finish a little drawing in a few minutes, a big one in half an hour and a very big one in one hour. So take a standard time of half an hour for a number of drawings, let’s say about six hundred. The result is three hundred hours. Three hundred hours is twelve days. Twelve days!!! And in sixteen years I’m honoured to say, with the passion that existed between us, you think it is unbelievable that he dedicated twelve days to me??? So generous a man, we could in fact say genial even in his generosity, that in the Introduction to Perry Ogden’s book of photography documenting the Reece Mews studio, John Edwards wrote about Bacon that “we had never been lovers, but he left everything to me because I excited a sense of paternity in him.”

Photo of Cristiano 25 years of age taken by Francis Bacon near Bologna in 1980

And now to finish. Regretfully I don’t have years to tell you what it really meant to receive the unspeakable privilege of being liked by Francis Bacon. Dear Francis, when I was young I was so foolhardy, so haughty to have believed you were a living toy for me. But now life has almost passed and I have become, like the others, a bleeding hook hanging on your memory. I have lived in hope, throughout all these dreadful years of trouble, to make people aware that you weren’t only a genius as a painter, but as a draughtsman also. I didn’t write this short essay to defend my honour but to defend the (graphic) honour of Francis Bacon.

BODY OF WORKS

001

head 1979 40 Ã&#x2014; 20

002 - 003 - 004

pope 1985

150 × 100

48 × 33

pope 1985 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

005 - 006 - 007

self-portrait 1987

pope 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

008 - 009 - 010

pope 1988

150 × 100

100 × 70

pope 1985 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

011 - 012 - 013

pope 1985

66 × 48

70 × 50

014 - 015 - 016

pope 1991

standing figure 1990

200 Ă&#x2014; 150

pope 1989 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

pope 1991 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

017 - 018 - 019

pope 1986

standing figure 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

020 - 021 - 022

pope 1988

200 × 150

pope 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

023 - 024 - 025

standing figure 1988

pope 1988

200 Ă&#x2014; 150

026 - 027 - 028

self-portrait 1989

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

head 1988 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

pope 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

029 - 030 - 031

study for portrait 1991

standing figure. portrait 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

032 - 033 - 034

pope 1988

standing figure 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

pope 1985 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

035 - 036

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1987

figure on a sofa 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

037 - 038

screaming pope 1990

self-portrait 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

039 - 040 - 041

standing figure 1984

figure on a sofa 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

pope 1986 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

042 - 043

screaming figure 1990

figure on a sofa 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

044 - 045

figure on a sofa 1984

self-portrait 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

pope 1990 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

046 - 047 - 048

pope 1984

figure on a sofa 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

049 - 050

standing figure 1989

pope 1983

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

051 - 052

standing figure 1986

standing figure 1990

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

053 - 054 - 055

screaming pope 1990

standing figure 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

head screaming 1989 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

056 - 057

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1985

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

058 - 059

portrait of eddie gray 1989

self-portrait 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

pope 1987 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

060 - 061 - 062

standing figure 1987

self-portrait 1984

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

063 - 064 - 065

pope 1988

100 × 70

pope 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

066 - 067 - 068

study for portrait 1983

pope 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

069 - 070 - 071

pope 1989

standing figure 1991

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

pope 1988 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

072 - 073 - 074

pope 1987

150 × 100

075 - 076

self-portrait 1988

standing figure 1989

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

077 - 078

standing figure 1987

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1989

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

079 - 080

crucifixion 1987

100 × 70

081 - 082

crucifixion 1990

crucifixion 1987

100 × 70

083 - 084 - 085

crucifixion 1986

crucifixion 1984

100 × 70

crucifixion 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

086 - 087

figure 1984

portrait of david sylvester 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

088 - 089

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

090 - 091 - 092

baboon 1990

crucifixion (homage to leonardo) 1991

100 × 70

turning figure 1988 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

head 1988 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

093 - 094 - 095

figure 1989

standing figure 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

096 - 097 - 098

seated figure 1986

figure on a sofa 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

100

standing figure 1991 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

pope 1987 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

099 - 100 - 101

pope 1990

100 × 70

103

102 - 103 - 104

pope 1982

screaming pope 1988

100 × 70

104

pope 1988 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

pope 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

105 - 106 - 107

pope 1987

pope 1990

100 × 70

107

108 - 109 - 110

pope 1991

pope 1988

150 × 100

100 × 70

108

pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

pope 1987 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

111 - 112 - 113

pope 1989

150 × 100

111

114 - 115

seated figure 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

112

116 - 117

self-portrait 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

113

118 - 119 - 120

portrait 1989

portrait 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

114

head 1984 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

121 - 122

figure on a sofa 1989

pope 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

116

123 - 124

self-portrait 1985

self-portrait (figure on a sofa) 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

117

125 - 126 - 127

homage to van gogh 1984

figure on a sofa 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

118

pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

seated figure 1987 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

128 - 129 - 130

standing figure 1985

seated figure 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

121

131 - 132 - 133

crucifixion 1986

100 × 70

122

crucifixion 1986 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

crucifixion 1990 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

134 - 135 - 136

crucifixion 1989

150 × 100

125

137 - 138 - 139

head 1979

29 × 21.5

70 × 50

126

self-portrait 1985 70 Ă&#x2014; 50

140 - 141

head 1983

study after guercino 1984

62.5 × 42.5

128

142 - 143

study after leonardo 1984

study after guercino 1984

43 × 31

129

144 - 145 - 146

study for a portrait of gianni agnelli 1979

study for a portrait 1980

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

75 Ă&#x2014; 60

130

head 1988 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

head 1989 87 Ã&#x2014; 67

147 - 148 - 149

study on leonardo 1984

62.5 Ă&#x2014; 42.5

62.5 Ă&#x2014; 43

133

150 - 151 - 152

portrait of david sylvester 1988

figure on a sofa 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

134

head 1986 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

153 - 154

seated figure 1985

self-portrait 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

136

155 - 156

seated figure 1984

seated figure 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

137

157 - 158 - 159

self-portrait 1990

standing figure 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

138

head 1987 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

160 - 161

crucifixion 1982

crucifixion 1987

100 × 70

140

162 - 163

crucifixion 1986

100 × 70

141

164 - 165

turning figure 1989

200 Ă&#x2014; 100

142

166

crucifixion 1990 100 Ã&#x2014; 50

143

167 - 168 - 169

pope 1985

pope 1986

100 × 70

144

pope 1992 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

pope 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

170 - 171 - 172

pope 1986

100 × 70

147

173 - 174 - 175

pope 1989

100 × 70

148

pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

pope 1987 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

176 - 177 - 178

turning figure 1987

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

151

179 - 180 - 181

pope 1985

pope 1987

150 × 100

152

pope 1985 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

182 - 183

head 1986

pope 1989

64 × 44.5

154

184 - 185

portrait of david sylvester 1987

pope 1983

64 Ă&#x2014; 44.5

155

186 - 187 - 188

figure on a sofa 1989

standing figure 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

156

seated figure 1984 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

pope 1984 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

189 - 190 - 191

head 1988

self-portrait 1991

64 Ă&#x2014; 44

159

192 - 193 - 194

self-portrait 1991

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

160

head 1985 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

195 - 196

turning figure 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

162

197 - 198

figure on a sofa 1982

seated figure 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

163

199 - 200 - 201

pope 1990

pope 1987

150 × 100

100 × 70

164

pope 1988 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

standing figure 1986 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

202 - 203 - 204

seated figure 1982

standing figure 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

167

205 - 206 - 207

crouching figure 1989

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1987

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

168

standing figure 1991 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

head 1991 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

208 - 209 - 210

pope 1985

head 1987

58 × 46

31.5 × 22

171

211 - 212 - 213

head 1986

33 × 24

50 × 36

172

head 1986 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

turning figure 1989 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

214 - 215 - 216

pope 1986

standing figure 1986

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

175

217 - 218 - 219

pope 1987

100 × 70

176

pope 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

220 - 221

self-portrait 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

178

222 - 223

figure 1988

self-portrait 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

179

224 - 225 - 226

seated figure 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

180

seated figure 1987 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

seated figure 1990 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

227 - 228 - 229

self-portrait 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

183

230 - 231 - 232

figure 1979

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

184

turning figure 1989 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

turning figure 1987 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

233 - 234 - 235

pope 1985

seated figure 1982

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

187

236 - 237 - 238

figure on a sofa 1986

seated figure 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

188

pope 1992 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

turning figure 1992 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

239 - 240 - 241

figure on a sofa 1980

turning figure 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

191

242 - 243 - 244

portrait of picasso 1987

pope 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

192

pope 1987 50 Ã&#x2014; 35

pope 1991 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

245 - 246 - 247

seated figure 1989

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1990

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

195

248 - 249 - 250

pope 1987

pope 1985

100 × 70

196

pope 1986 50 Ã&#x2014; 35

pope 1992 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

251 - 252 - 253

screaming pope 1987

pope 1984

100 × 70

199

254 - 255

seated figure 1987

figure on a sofa 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

200

256 - 257

seated figure 1989

standing figure 1990

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

201

258 - 259 - 260

crucifixion with furies 1988

crucifixion 1987

100 × 70

202

crucifixion 1983 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

crucifixion 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

261 - 262 - 263

crucifixion 1990

crucifixion 1987

100 × 70

205

264 - 265 - 266

turning figure 1990

self-portrait 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

206

head 1984 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

head 1983 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

267 - 268 - 269

figure 1985

figure 1989

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

209

270 - 271

standing figure 1989

seated figure 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

210

272 - 273

crucifixion 1990

self-portrait 1989

100 × 70

211

274 - 275 - 276

seated figure 1987

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

75.8 Ă&#x2014; 56.5

212

turning figure 1988 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

seated figure 1989 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

277 - 278 - 279

figure on a sofa 1991

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

215

280 - 281

turning figure 1989

figure on a sofa 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

216

282 - 283

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1991

figure on a sofa 1985

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

217

284 - 285 - 286

head 1988

head 1989

64 × 44.5

218

self-portrait 1987 70 Ă&#x2014; 50

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1988 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

287 - 288 - 289

screaming head 1989

self-portrait 1989

64 × 44.5

56 × 44.5

221

290 - 291

figure 1986

70.5 Ă&#x2014; 50.5

64 Ă&#x2014; 44.5

222

292

head 1981 29 Ã&#x2014; 21

223

293

fury 1992 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

224

294 - 295

homage to van gogh 1987

figure 1986

70 Ă&#x2014; 58

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

225

296 - 297

figure on a sofa 1987

turning figure 1987

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

226

298 - 299

pope 1988

seated figure 1987

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

227

300 - 301 - 302

crucifixion 1984

100 × 70

228

crucifixion 1987 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

303 - 304

crucifixion 1986

crucifixion 1990

100 × 70

230

305 - 306

crucifixion 1985 (unfinished)

crucifixion 1990

100 × 70

231

crucifixion 1990 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

307 - 308 - 309

crucifixion 1984

crucifixion 1983

100 × 70

233

310 - 311 - 312

head 1984

head 1985

100 × 70

50 × 35

234

head 1986 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

head 1984 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

313 - 314 - 315

head 1983

44 × 31

70 × 50

237

316 - 317 - 318

head 1983

head 1982

50 × 35

238

head 1985 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

319 - 320

female head 1982

head 1985

50 × 35

240

321 - 322

screaming head 1984

portrait 1985

50 × 35.3

50 × 35.5

241

323 - 324 - 325

self-portrait 1986

50.5 Ă&#x2014; 35.5

50 Ă&#x2014; 35

242

head 1985 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

screaming head 1985 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

326 - 327 - 328

screaming head 1985

42 × 38.5

50 × 35

245

329 - 330 - 331

head 1985

48 × 33

51 × 35

246

head 1985 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

332 - 333

head 1985

32 × 22

248

334 - 335

head 1985

32 × 22

249

336 - 337 - 338

head 1985

58 × 45

49 × 35

250

head 1992 65 Ã&#x2014; 50

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1992 65 Ă&#x2014; 50

339 - 340 - 341

head 1985

50 × 35

35 × 26

253

342 - 343 - 344

pope 1986

head of a pope 1987

44 × 31

29.5 × 23

254

screaming figure 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

pope 1986 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

345 - 346 - 347

screaming head 1987

head 1985

58 × 46

58 × 46.5

257

348 - 349 - 350

head 1987

head 1985

49.5 × 35.7

49.5 × 34.5

258

portrait 1989 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

head 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

351 - 352 - 353

head 1982

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1985

49.5 Ă&#x2014; 35

32 Ă&#x2014; 22

261

354 - 355 - 356

head 1986

70 × 50

50.5 × 35.2

262

head 1991 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1991 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

357 - 358 - 359

head 1986

50.5 × 35.5

70 × 50

265

360 - 361 - 362

pope screaming 1990

pope screaming 1985

70 × 50

57.5 × 45

266

pope 1992 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

pope 1985 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

363 - 364 - 365

figure 1986

pope 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

269

366 - 367 - 368

pope 1988

figure on a sofa 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

270

pope 1990 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

pope screaming 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

369 - 370 - 371

pope screaming 1990

pope screaming 1989

49.5 × 35.7

50 × 35

273

372 - 373

turning figure 1982

standing figure 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

274

374 - 375

standing figure 1984

seated figure 1982

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

275

pope 1986 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

376 - 377 - 378

baboon 1989

self-portrait 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

277

379 - 380

crucifixion 1991

75.5 × 57

100 × 70

278

381 - 382

crucifixion 1988

crucifixion 1989

100 × 70

279

383 - 384 - 385

unfinished figure 1980

figure on a sofa 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

280

seated figure 1992 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

386 - 387

baboon under umbrella 1987

turning figure 1986

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

282

388 - 389

figure 1987

pope 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

283

390 - 391 - 392

crouching figure 1989

portrait of cristiano lovatelli ravarino 1982

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

284

seated figure 1987 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

pope 1992 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

393 - 394 - 395

pope 1986

150 × 100

287

396 - 397 - 398

pope 1987

100 × 70

150 × 100

288

pope 1992 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

399 - 400

woman 1986

self-portrait 1982

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

290

401

crouching woman 1984 70 Ã&#x2014; 100

291

standing figure 1984 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

402 - 403 - 404

self-portrait 1983

standing figure 1983

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

293

405 - 406 - 407

figure on a sofa 1989

figure on a sofa 1988

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

294

pope 1988 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

head 1991 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

408 - 409 - 410

baboon 1990

self-portrait 1988

48 Ă&#x2014; 33

50 Ă&#x2014; 36

297

411 - 412 - 413

head of a woman 1989

head 1985

50 × 35

58 × 46

298

head screaming 1992 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

portrait of a woman 1990 65 Ă&#x2014; 50

414 - 415

female head 1987 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

301

416 - 417 - 418

woman 1986

female head 1984

100 × 70

58 × 46

302

portrait of isabel rawsthorne 1990 65 Ă&#x2014; 50

portrait 1990 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

419 - 420 - 421

study on leonardo 1986

seated figure 1982

76 Ă&#x2014; 57

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

305

422 - 423 - 424

head 1981

70 × 50

76 × 57

306

figure 1985 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

self-portrait 1990 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

425 - 426 - 427

head 1985

48 × 33

309

428 - 429 - 430

figure 1982

figure screaming 1989

70 × 50

50 × 35

310

figure screaming 1990 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

figure screaming 1990 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

431 - 432 - 433

for a portrait of giovanni agnelli 1979

turning figure 1978

75.5 Ă&#x2014; 57

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

313

434 - 435 - 436

head of a pope 1987

pope 1988

70 × 50

100 × 70

314

pope 1992 65 Ã&#x2014; 50

head 1988 70 Ã&#x2014; 50

437 - 438 - 439

head 1986

70 × 50

317

440 - 441 - 442

head 1986

pope screaming 1988

50 × 35

60 × 44

318

head 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

head 1992 65 Ã&#x2014; 50

443 - 444 - 445

self-portrait 1984

head screaming 1981

50 × 34

50 × 35

321

446 - 447 - 448

head 1985

head 1989

58 × 46

100 × 70

322

self-portrait 1992 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

head 1989 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

449 - 450 - 451

head 1989

portrait 1989

80 × 60

50 × 35

325

452 - 453 - 454

pope 1987

screaming pope 1990

150 × 100

70 × 50

326

screaming pope 1987 100 Ã&#x2014; 70

turning figure 1992 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

455 - 456 - 457

standing figure 1986 100 Ă&#x2014; 70

crouching figure 1990 170 Ă&#x2014; 80

329

458 - 459 - 460

standing figure 1988

seated figure 1986

200 Ă&#x2014; 150

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

330

seated figure 1992 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

standing figure 1992 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

461 - 462 - 463

figure on a sofa 1989

figure on a sofa 1984

100 Ă&#x2014; 70

333

464 - 465 - 466

seated figure 1986

turning figure 1988

70 Ă&#x2014; 50

150 Ă&#x2014; 100

334

standing figure 1992 150 Ă&#x2014; 100

467 - 468

crucifixion 1992

100 × 70

336

469 - 470

crucifixion 1990

100 × 70

337

471 - 472 - 473

screaming pope 1989

screaming pope 1991

150 × 100

100 × 70

338

screaming pope 1991 150 Ã&#x2014; 100

474

head 1981 29 Ã&#x2014; 21

340

341

342

APPENDIX

343

344

LIST OF WORKS

cat. num.

page

433

313

230 231 432 001 137 138 144

184 184 313 41 126 126 130

240 145 383

191 130 280

292 422 423 474 445

223 306 306 340 321

160 319 428 197 317 352 102 391 203 235

140 240 310 163 238 261 104 284 167 187

1978

Turning Figure. 100 × 70

1979

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Figure. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 For a Portrait of Giovanni Agnelli. 75.5 × 57 Head. 40 × 20 Head. 29 × 21.5 Head. 70 × 50 Study for a Portrait of Gianni Agnelli. 100 × 70 1980

9. 10. 11.

Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Study for a Portrait. 75 × 60 Unfinished Figure. 100 × 70 1981

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Head. 29 × 21 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 76 × 57 Head. 29 × 21 Head Screaming. 50 × 35 1982

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Female Head. 50 × 35 Figure. 70 × 50 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 50 × 35 Head. 49.5 × 35 Pope. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70

345

27. 28. 29. 30.

Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70

375 421 400 372

275 305 290 274

260 309 048 140 267 314 315 316 050 185 198 045 223 403 204 373 404 067

203 233 71 128 208 237 237 238 72 155 163 69 179 293 167 274 293 83

401 084 300 301 308 417 086 044 463 120 266 310 313 125 047 068 189 253 389 057 088 089

291 92 228 228 233 302 94 69 333 115 207 234 236 118 71 83 158 199 283 76 95 95

1983

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 62.5 × 42.5 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 44 × 31 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 50 × 35 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 64 × 44.5 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Study for Portrait. 100 × 70 1984

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

Crouching Woman. 70 × 100 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Female Head. 58 × 46 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 70 × 50 Homage to Van Gogh. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 70 × 50 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70

346

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of David Sylvester. 100 × 70 Screaming Head. 50 × 35.3 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 150 × 100 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 50 × 34 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Study after Guercino. 62.5 × 42.5 Study after Guercino. 43 × 31 Study after Leonardo. 43 × 31 Study on Leonardo. 62.5 × 42.5 Study on Leonardo. 62.5 × 43

193 087 321 114 115 155 188 224 225 062 378 444 039 054 374 402 141 143 142 148 149

160 94 241 112 112 137 157 180 180 79 277 321 66 74 275 292 128 129 129 133 133

305 268 424 040 283 194 311 318 320 325 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 340 341 347 349 412 426

231 209 307 66 217 161 234 239 240 243 246 246 247 248 248 249 249 250 250 253 253 257 258 298 309

1985

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116.

Crucifixion (unfinished). 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 50 × 35 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 50 × 35 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 48 × 33 Head. 51 × 35 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 32 × 22 Head. 32 × 22 Head. 32 × 22 Head. 32 × 22 Head. 58 × 45 Head. 49 × 35 Head. 50 × 35 Head. 35 × 26 Head. 58 × 46.5 Head. 49.5 × 34.5 Head. 58 × 46 Head. 48 × 33

347

117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150.

Head. 48 × 33 Head. 58 × 46 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 48 × 33 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 66 × 48 Pope. 70 × 50 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 58 × 46 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope Screaming. 57.5 × 45 Portrait. 50 × 35.5 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 32 × 22 Screaming Head. 70 × 50 Screaming Head. 42 × 38.5 Screaming Head. 50 × 35 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 70 × 50 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 150 × 100

427 446 002 003 004 005 010 012 013 034 167 179 181 209 234 249 363 361 322 056 353 326 327 328 130 153 237 038 123 139 265 033 129 187

309 322 42 42 43 44 47 49 49 63 144 152 153 171 187 196 268 266 241 76 261 244 245 245 121 136 188 65 117 127 206 62 121 156

083 131 132 133 162 163 303 290 291 295 364 043

92 122 122 123 141 141 230 222 222 225 269 68

1986

151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162.

Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Figure. 70.5 × 50.5 Figure. 64 × 44.5 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70

348

163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209. 210.

Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 64 × 44.5 Head. 33 × 24 Head. 50 × 36 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 50.5 × 35.2 Head. 50.5 × 35.5 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 50 × 35 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 50 × 35 Pope. 44 × 31 Pope. 70 × 50 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Portrait. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 70 × 50 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 50.5 × 35.5 Self-Portrait. 50 × 35 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Study on Leonardo. 76 × 57 Turning Figure. 100 × 70

126 236 384 152 182 211 212 213 312 354 355 358 359 438 439 440 007 018 041 168 171 172 215 243 250 342 345 365 376 394 395 119 096 156 459 464 220 221 228 229 323 324 051 202 216 456 420 387

349

118 188 280 135 154 172 172 173 235 262 262 265 265 317 317 318 45 53 67 144 147 147 175 192 197 254 256 269 276 287 287 114 100 137 330 334 178 178 183 183 242 242 73 166 175 329 305 282

211. 212.

Woman. 100 × 70 Woman. 100 × 70

399 416

290 302

386 079 080 082 161 259 263 302 415 388 036 097 151 255 281 296 159 210 348 343 434 294 060 073 074 099 106 111 176 180 200 217 218 244 248 396 397 452 035 206 184 242 346 252

282 90 90 91 140 202 205 229 301 283 64 100 134 200 216 226 139 171 258 254 314 225 78 87 87 102 107 110 150 152 164 176 176 193 196 288 288 326 64 168 155 192 257 199

1987

213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 254. 255. 256.

Baboon under Umbrella. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Female Head. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 31.5 × 22 Head. 49.5 × 35.7 Head of a Pope. 29.5 × 23 Head of a Pope. 70 × 50 Homage to Van Gogh. 70 × 58 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 50 × 35 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of David Sylvester. 64 × 44.5 Portrait of Picasso. 100 × 70 Screaming Head. 58 × 46 Screaming Pope. 100 × 70

350

257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262. 263. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 271. 272. 273. 274. 275. 276. 277. 278. 279. 280.

Screaming Pope. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 150 × 100 Seated Figure. 75.8 × 56.5 Seated Figure. 150 × 100 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 70 × 50 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 150 × 100 Turning Figure. 150 × 100 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70

454 128 226 254 271 274 275 299 392 006 116 117 154 286 061 077 095 158 177 178 195 196 233 297

327 120 181 200 210 212 212 227 285 45 113 113 136 219 79 89 99 138 151 151 162 162 186 226

381 258 222 367 406 028 093 146 190 284 437 008 009 020 021 025 032 063 064 072 104 109

279 202 179 270 294 59 98 131 159 218 316 46 46 54 54 57 62 80 80 86 105 108

1988

281. 282. 283. 284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300. 301. 302.

Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion with Furies. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 70 × 50 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 64 × 44 Head. 64 × 44.5 Head. 70 × 50 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 200 × 150 Pope. 200 × 150 Pope. 200 × 150 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70

351

303. 304. 305. 306. 307. 308. 309. 310. 311. 312. 313. 314. 315. 316. 317. 318. 319. 320. 321. 322. 323. 324.

Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope Screaming. 60 × 44 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of David Sylvester. 100 × 70 Screaming Pope. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 150 × 100 Self-Portrait. 50 × 36 Self-Portrait (Figure on a Sofa). 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 200 × 150 Standing Figure. 200 × 150 Standing Figure. Portrait. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 150 × 100 Turning Figure. 150 × 100

122 201 298 366 407 435 441 287 150 103 059 075 410 124 019 024 458 031 092 241 276 465

116 165 227 270 295 314 318 220 134 104 77 88 297 117 53 57 330 61 97 191 213 334

377 205 390 085 135 136 261 382 094 269 121 186 405 462 429 147 285 351 442 447 449 450 411 055

277 168 284 93 125 125 204 279 99 209 116 156 294 333 310 132 218 260 319 322 324 325 298 75

1989

325. 326. 327. 328. 329. 330. 331. 332. 333. 334. 335. 336. 337. 338. 339. 340. 341. 342. 343. 344. 345. 346. 347. 348.

Baboon. 100 × 70 Crouching Figure. 150 × 100 Crouching Figure. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 150 × 100 Crucifixion. 150 × 100 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure Screaming. 50 × 35 Head. 87 × 67 Head. 64 × 44.5 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 80 × 60 Head of a Woman. 50 × 35 Head Screaming. 70 × 50

352

349. 350. 351. 352. 353. 354. 355. 356. 357. 358. 359. 360. 361. 362. 363. 364. 365. 366. 367. 368. 369. 370. 371. 372. 373. 374. 375. 376. 377. 378. 379. 380. 381. 382. 383. 384. 385. 386. 387.

Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 64 × 44.5 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope Screaming. 100 × 70 Pope Screaming. 50 × 35 Portrait. 100 × 70 Portrait. 100 × 70 Portrait. 50 × 35 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 150 × 100 Portrait of Eddie Gray. 100 × 70 Screaming Figure. 100 × 70 Screaming Head. 64 × 44.5 Screaming Pope. 150 × 100 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Seated Figure. 150 × 100 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 56 × 44.5 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 200 × 100 Turning Figure. 200 × 100 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 150 × 100 Turning Figure. 100 × 70

016 022 029 065 066 069 105 112 113 170 173 174 183 219 369 371 118 350 451 078 058 344 288 471 246 256 277 026 027 273 289 049 076 270 164 165 214 232 280

51 55 60 81 82 84 106 111 111 146 148 148 154 177 272 273 114 259 325 89 77 255 221 338 195 201 214 58 58 211 221 72 88 210 142 142 174 185 216

090 409 457 081 134 166 262

96 297 329 91 124 143 205

1990

388. 389. 390. 391. 392. 393. 394.

Baboon. 100 × 70 Baboon. 48 × 33 Crouching Figure. 170 × 80 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 150 × 100 Crucifixion. 100 × 50 Crucifixion. 100 × 70

353

395. 396. 397. 398. 399. 400. 401. 402. 403. 404. 405. 406. 407. 408. 409. 410. 411. 412. 413. 414. 415. 416. 417. 418. 419. 420. 421. 422. 423. 424. 425.

Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 150 × 100 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Figure Screaming. 100 × 70 Figure Screaming. 70 × 50 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope Screaming. 70 × 50 Pope Screaming. 49.5 × 35.7 Portrait. 100 × 70 Portrait of a Woman. 65 × 50 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne. 65 × 50 Screaming Figure. 100 × 70 Screaming Pope. 100 × 70 Screaming Pope. 100 × 70 Screaming Pope. 70 × 50 Seated Figure. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 200 × 150 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 100 × 70

272 304 306 307 469 470 430 431 046 100 101 107 199 368 360 370 419 414 247 418 042 037 053 453 227 157 425 015 052 257 264

211 230 231 232 337 337 311 312 70 103 103 107 164 271 266 273 304 300 195 303 68 65 74 326 182 138 308 50 73 201 206

379 380 091 278 279 208 356 408 011 014 017 023 071 108 110

278 278 96 215 215 170 263 296 48 50 52 56 85 108 109

1991

426. 427. 428. 429. 430. 431. 432. 433. 434. 435. 436. 437. 438. 439. 440.

Crucifixion. 75.5 × 57 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion (Homage to Leonardo). 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Figure on a Sofa. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Head. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 200 × 150 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100

354

441. 442. 443. 444. 445. 446. 447. 448. 449. 450. 451. 452. 453.

Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 100 × 70 Screaming Pope. 100 × 70 Screaming Pope. 150 × 100 Self-Portrait. 64 × 44 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 100 × 70 Study for Portrait. 100 × 70

127 175 245 282 357 472 473 191 192 070 098 207 030

119 149 194 217 264 338 339 159 160 84 101 169 61

467 468 293 338 443 413 169 238 251 362 393 398 436 339 385 460 448 461 466 239 455

336 336 224 251 320 299 145 189 198 267 286 289 315 252 281 331 323 332 335 190 328

1992

454. 455. 456. 457. 458. 459. 460. 461. 462. 463. 464. 465. 466. 467. 468. 469. 470. 471. 472. 473. 474.

Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Crucifixion. 100 × 70 Fury. 100 × 70 Head. 65 × 50 Head. 65 × 50 Head Screaming. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 150 × 100 Pope. 100 × 70 Pope. 65 × 50 Portrait of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. 65 × 50 Seated Figure. 150 × 100 Seated Figure. 150 × 100 Self-Portrait. 100 × 70 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Standing Figure. 150 × 100 Turning Figure. 100 × 70 Turning Figure. 150 × 100

355

356

WITNESS STATEMENT OF CRISTIANO LOVATELLI RAVARINO I affirm that I am Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, and that I knew Francis Bacon and was his close friend from 1977 till 1992.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH I, CRISTIANO LOVATELLI RAVARINO, STATE THAT THE FACTS DESCRIBED IN THIS DOCUMENT ARE TRUE TO MY BEST KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. 1) I met Francis Bacon in 1976/77 in Rome, and spent time with him almost until the day of his death in April 1992: a relationship that continued uninterrupted for roughly fifteen years. 2) We were lovers, a relationship we conducted with the highest level of secrecy for reasons I stated before the court in Bologna, and which have been faithfully reprinted in the book The Tip of an Iceberg by Umberto Guerini. 3) Despite the inherent secrecy of my relationship with Francis Bacon, several people testified before the court in Bologna that they had seen us together on more than one occasion and in a number of different places. These people are: Carlo Gaggioli, Elisa Menardi, Gloria Zanella and Vincenzo Lucchese, whose testimonies are published in the book The Tip of an Iceberg by Umberto Guerini. 3) Carlo Gaggioli, Elisa Menardi and Gloria Zanella declared that they each received a drawing from Francis Bacon, indicating the reasons why they received the gifts, under what circumstances, where and when, all of which can be read in the book The Tip of an Iceberg by Umberto Guerini. 4) Nanni Nerio, heard as a witness by the court in Bologna, declared that in May, 1981 he held an exhibition of drawings by Francis Bacon in his gallery in Bologna. A copy of the exhibition catalogue is included with this witness statement. The exhibition was presented by Professor Giorgio Ruggeri, a wellknown Italian art critic and expert on Bacon’s artwork. Signor Nerio Nanni’s statements are published verbatim in the book The Tip of an Iceberg by Umberto Guerini. 5) Gabriella Pezzoli, also known as “Bebella,” declared that she received a drawing from Francis Bacon. Here is an account of the circumstances: “The lady is known to her friends as Bebella, but her real name is Gabriella Pezzoli. She lives in Bologna old town. I will not give the name of the street for privacy reasons. Gabriella Pezzoli, known as Bebella, remembers the episode in detail, but she does not remember when it took place. She dates it to between 1980 and 1990, specifying nevertheless that at the time she was around 34 or 35, so she tends to think that it might have been 1982 or 1983. She remembers that that evening at the Poeti Restaurant she had a lot of fun, drinking, singing and dancing as it was then possible to do. At a certain point, an older gentleman, who was seated at a table with others of a certain age, took a drawing out of a folder he had with him and gave it to her. They spoke in French, the only foreign language she knew, even though the gentleman addressed her in English and tried to express himself in Italian. In fluent French, the stranger told her

357

he would be very happy if she would accept a drawing of his in tribute to her gaiety and friendliness. She accepted it, and soon after, she found out that the gentleman was Francis Bacon. She knew he was a great painter, but she did not like that drawing, nor did she like his paintings, which she was later able to see. She preferred decorating her walls with Bertelli paintings, which did not provoke angst or negative thoughts. Nevertheless, she kept it (the Francis Bacon drawing), putting it under glass in an old family frame. It remained framed this way. At the time this happened, she did not know Cristiano Ravarino. She met him years later, and she never knew of his relationship with Francis Bacon and the drawings. Having met him, and therefore being familiar with his physical appearance, she categorically ruled out the possibility that Ravarino had been with Bacon that evening. She was much astonished to hear of the trial he had been subjected to and which she knew nothing about.” Her declaration is included in the last pages of the book The Tip of an Iceberg by Umberto Guerini, as well as an image of the drawing Francis Bacon gave to Gabriella Pezzoli as a gift. 6) Argentine Marquis Horacio de Sosa Cordero — a personal friend of Francis Bacon’s who was so intimate with the painter that he was called upon by John Edwards to identify the body in Madrid, as well as handle the formalities relative to the cremation of Bacon’s body and transporting the ashes to London — noted in an essay he wrote for the exhibition Francis Bacon — Bohumil Hrabal, held in Prague from May 18, 2012 to July 22, 2012 at the Gate Gallery: “I could tell you so many stories about Francis that I could practically write a book. We were together in London, Madrid, Monte Carlo and Paris, and sometimes another mutual friend and great artist Alberto Giacometti joined us for our long talks. Francis Bacon was a great guy and a wonderful friend among friends, of which there were not many. Very few people frequented his studio in London on a daily basis: Peter Beard, whenever he came back from one of his photographic safaris in Africa; David Sylvester; Lucian Freud; George Dyer; and I. Years later John Edwards, who sometimes arrived from Italy accompanied by a young, very friendly Bologna journalist named Ravarino. Francis Bacon toured Italy together with Ravarino, visiting Rome, Sicily, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Bologna, Tuscany and other Italian cities. <…> The truth is that Francis Bacon began to make periodic trips to Italy, where things were quiet and he was away from the watchful eyes of Gilbert Lloyd, or his sister Angela or Pierre Levin, his right-hand man in NYC, today director of the gallery. Then he would eagerly dedicate himself to drawing, as well as producing collages and mixed media, some of which can be seen on display at the Gate Gallery in Prague, and many of which represent his magnificent series of Popes, in addition to studio portraits, or compositions, some of which I saw in his atelier in Paris.” 7) The testimonies provided here above prove that Francis Bacon created drawings similar to the ones he gave me as gifts in his studio in Paris; that Francis Bacon and I met one another and spent time together in Italy and London; that Francis Bacon came to Bologna, Venice and Cortina d’Ampezzo, where he was seen together with me and a number of other people; that Francis Bacon, together with me, gave drawings that he had with him to Carlo Gaggioli, Elisa Menardi and Gloria Zanella; and that he gave a drawing to Gabriella Pezzoli on an occasion where I was not present. 8) In 2007 I met David Edwards, the brother of John Edwards: I spoke with him about my long relationship with Francis Bacon, and together we recalled facts and circumstances about his life that only his most intimate friends are familiar with. David Edwards asked to see the drawings that Francis Bacon gave me, and recognized them as Francis Bacon’s handiwork. Subsequently I sent him some so that he might examine them more closely and show them to other friends of Francis Bacon. Later I learned that he had sold twelve of these drawings, although I cannot say anything about the circumstances of this sale, because I never knew any more about it. After hearing about this, I asked David Edwards to give me back the drawings I sent him, which he did, although several of my drawings still remain in his possession. 9) Beginning in 2008, after having learned that the Estate did not recognize some of the drawings by Francis Bacon that it had examined and which were connected with me — though at the same time declar-

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ing that it would proceed with a new examination of the drawings when and if additional information relative to their history, provenance and dates were to come forth — I decided to hire a lawyer, Umberto Guerini, in order to investigate the issue further. Together we decided to initiate an extensive exhibition program designed to familiarize art historians, critics and the general public with Francis Bacon’s drawings, so that people can freely express their opinions of them: I did this happily and willingly, secure in the knowledge that I have never lied and do not have anything to hide. Beginning with an exhibition held from June to November 2009 at the Palazzo Zenobio degli Armeni in Venice (not included as part of the official events but nevertheless held on the occasion of the 2009 Venice Biennale), the drawings have been displayed in exhibitions in the following cities: Zurich (2009); Milan (2010); Buenos Aires (2010); Évora, Portugal (2010); Cento — Bologna, Italy (2010); Berlin (2010); Santiago, Chile (2011); Paris (2011); Venice (2011); London (2011); London (2012); Taiwan (2012); Prague (2012); and Aguascalientes, Mexico (2012). Catalogues from each of these exhibitions can be consulted freely online. 10) The following art historians have written about the drawings Francis Bacon gave to me: Giorgio Soavi; Edward Lucie-Smith; Vittorio Sgarbi; Antonello Trombadori; Alessandro Riva; Pei-Ni Beatrice Hsieh; Serena Baccaglini; Raffaele Gavarro. They have carefully examined the drawings and unanimously declared that they are beyond doubt the work of Francis Bacon. 11) Dr. Ambra Draghetti, an expert graphologist who serves as a consultant to numerous judicial authorities and branches of the Italian police, was a consultant for the prosecution during my trial before the court in Bologna, at the end of which I was cleared of charges that I had forged the drawings, according to the formula “the act is not recognized by the law as a crime,” as well as charges of fraud “due to time limitations.” In 2010 my lawyer, Umberto Guerini, chose Ms. Draghetti, precisely because she had acted previously as a consultant for the prosecution and was therefore entirely credible and trustworthy as an expert, to conduct a “pro veritate” examination of all the drawings given to me by Francis Bacon, as well as of the act of donation connected with them. Dr. Draghetti’s conclusion can be summed up with: the signatures found on these drawings, as well as all the graphic signs and marks used to create these drawings, are by Francis Bacon’s hand. 12) Following research conducted in England by my lawyer Umberto Guerini, during the month of November testimony was gathered from the following individuals: Brian Hayhow; Lyndsay Hayhow; and Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser. They declared that they met Francis Bacon in 1986 during the surgical procedure that Brian Hayhow conducted on John Edwards, who was the victim of an untreated appendicitis that risked degenerating into peritonitis. After the surgery, Lyndsay and Brian Hayhow were invited by John Edwards and Francis Bacon to their cottage in Long Melford and here, as you can read in the declaration by Brian Hayhow: “I saw him when he came out. And I remember Francis and John were walking very slowly and carefully… A big table —I think in a conservatory area — was strewn with books, magazines, drawings… and Francis picked them up to move them away. ‘They’re nothing!’ (said Francis) because I suspect that he did not want to be praised… And he said ‘I am grateful to you… Thank you for saving me.’ And I was slightly embarrassed. But I was also very, very happy and pleased. And, subsequently, John Edwards made a good recovery. And had no problems with regards… following his operation. Which he could have had. Because of adhesions and… other problems. So I kept a little bit of a close eye on him, for a few months after that. But he made a full recovery.” Brian Hayhow’s wife Lyndsay and their friend Margaret have confirmed his statements. They became friends with Francis Bacon in 1986, and spent considerable time with him from that point forward. The two drawings Francis Bacon gave to Brian Hayhow as gifts are identical in style and signature to the drawings that were given to me. I am including copies of these two drawings together with this witness statement.

Faithfully yours, Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino

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WITNESS STATEMENT OF UMBERTO GUERINI

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE APPEAL REF: 2012/0383 CHANCERY DIVISION ON APPEAL FROM THE CAMBRIDGE COUNTY COURT JOHN FREDERICK TANNER, Appellant v. NIGEL MILLAR (TRUSTEE), Respondent

I, Umberto Guerini, make this witness statement regarding the appeal of John Tanner, the Appellant, from an order of District Judge Pelly in the Cambridge County Court on the May 31, 2012. This statement is made as evidence regarding the memorabilia (the art) which is the subject matter of the Bacon contracts that has led to a claim against the Appellant. I am Umberto Guerini, dob 13.08.1947, Bologna , lawyer admitted into the Foro di Bologna (Italian bar), owner of the law firm Guerini & Partners Avvocati, Bologna, Italy.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH I, UMBERTO GUERINI, STATE THAT THE FACTS ABOVE ARE TRUE TO MY BEST KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. Beginning in 1997, after being hired by Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, I began handling the drawings that Francis Bacon gave Ravarino as gifts between 1977 and 1992, as is demonstrated by the act of gifting dated 2.04.1988, signed by the Irish painter (who was the one who personally provided the information contained in the act). The act reads as follows: â&#x20AC;&#x153;02/04/1988 I left all my drawings to Christian Ravarino. I am indebted to him and Italian renaissance culture.

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I also have the suspicion that in all those years Marlborough Gallery cheated and robbed me thanks to awkward situation created by the gallery itself. With love, Francis Bacon.” The date and signature are Francis Bacon’s handwriting, while the text was typewritten by Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. In addition to the aforementioned act of gifting, the authenticity of said drawings has been demonstrated by countless amounts of evidence:

1) The Bologna court sentence which, on July 8, 2004 absolved Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino of the charge of having forged the drawings not “in dubio pro reo” but “because the facts are not a crime” and definitively recognized the following circumstances: in May 1981, at Galleria Nanni in Bologna, some thirty drawings by Francis Bacon, owned by Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, were placed on display. The exhibition was presented by art historian Giorgio Ruggeri; in 1982 Francis Bacon was in Bologna together with Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino and, during his stay, gave one of his drawings as a gift to Carlo Gaggioli, a winemaker and the owner of the cantina where Bacon would go with Cristiano and other friends of his; at the end of 1980, Francis Bacon and Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino took vacations together more than once in Cortina d’Ampezzo: during these vacations Francis Bacon gave two of his drawings to signoras Gloria Zanella and Elisa Menardi; in 1987/88, Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino and Francis Bacon were together in Venice, where they were visited by professor Vincenzo Lucchese at a party held in Palazzo Pisani-Morretta; the drawings given by Francis Bacon to Carlo Gaggioli, Gloria Zanella and Elisa Menardi are identical to a consistent share of those given as gifts to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, and bear the same signature; a portion of the signatures on the 165 drawings that this trial deals with are Francis Bacon’s, as proven by the handwriting analysis conducted by professor Ambra Draghetti, and as the judge recognized in his sentence.

2) To sum up: the sentence handed down by the Bologna court confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt the truth of the aforementioned circumstances, and leads to the following deductions: Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino and Francis Bacon knew one another and spent time together for roughly fifteen years, from 1977 to 1992; the drawings were a part of their relationship; Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino obtained and provided most of the paper upon which the drawings were made for Francis Bacon: in particular, the paper bought at the Fabriano paper shop, as demonstrated by the dry stamps on the sheets of paper, which Bacon initially cut

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off because he assumed they were a form of advertisement; Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino’s drawings come directly from Francis Bacon, who gave them to Ravarino as gifts. The expert report examining Francis Bacon’s signature and graphic signs, produced by professor Ambra Draghetti, an expert criminal graphologist who, after having conducted in-depth scientific analysis of both the signatures and the graphic signs, comparing them with significant graphic elements that are unquestionably Bacon’s, concludes that both the signatures and the drawings were undoubtedly the work of Francis Bacon.

3) New evidences emerged after the sentence. Testimony from Mrs. Gabriella Pezzoli, living in Bologna, Italy. She told me that one night of 1982, in Bologna, in an ancient tavern named “Osteria dei Poeti” Francis Bacon gave her a drawing that is similar to those of Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino; Testimony from Marquis Horacio de Sosa Cordero, one of Francis Bacon’s closest friends (Cordero was called to Madrid at the end of April 1992 to identify Bacon’s body). In a press conference held in Buenos Aires on October 22, 2010, Cordero recognized the authenticity of all forty drawings exhibited, including the signatures and even many of the people portrayed in the drawings. In a recent article, Horacio de Sosa Cordero affirmed that he met Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino at Francis Bacon’s London studio in 7 Reece Mews, where only a few extremely close friends were allowed to enter, and that he saw several drawings similar to those in Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino’s collection in Francis Bacon’s studio in Paris. Testimony from the art historian Stephen Conrad, who recently stated: “The facts, as I recall them, are these. I was persuaded by my friend, the art dealer Edward Bigden, to meet a man called Ian Collins in Debenham, Suffolk, and take a look at the Bacon drawings which he had in his possession. At that time, Edward will recall the date, but sometime in 2008 I think, I did not know that these drawings had come through David Edwards and had belonged to Cristiano Ravarino. I thought they were right (this is only a personal opinion, and one which I uphold) and though not an expert on Bacon, I am an art historian, and I was acquainted with Martin Harrison, so one day I called Harrison and Edwards and I arranged to meet him at his home and to show him about 6 drawings. Edwards will recall the date, but we met Harrison at his home near Westbourne Grove/Paddington, a mews house I recall, and this was at the time when the catalogue raisonné was being started. Edwards and I showed him the contents of the portfolio, Harrison’s wife was present, and indeed, Harrison seemed perfectly convinced that the drawings were indeed by Bacon.” Testimony from: Lyndsay Hayhow, dob 21.03.1947, 3 Temple Gardens, Temple, London, Barrister at the Law Chambers of John Coffey, Q.C. Bryan Hayhow , dob 10.06.1946, Oak House, Foxearth, Nr Sudbury, Suffolk, Physician. These were friends of John Edwards and Francis Bacon from 1986 until the artist’s death. Bryan Hayhow, who in 1986 operated on John Edwards for an appendicitis, received as a gift from Francis Bacon two signed pencil drawings, identical to those given as gifts to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser, dob 20.03.1952, 62 Nutbrook Street, London. She was a friend of Francis Bacon, John Edwards, Lyndsay and Bryan Hayhow, confirms their statements and confirms that she saw many different drawings by Francis Bacon, who usually drew anywhere and everywhere.

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The drawings have been examined by internationally renowned art historians and art critics including: Giorgio Soavi, Edward Lucie-Smith, Vittorio Sgarbi and, most recently, Pei-Ni Beatrice Hsieh, director of the museum of modern art in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and past head of Christie’s for Asia. Already in September 2011, in Monte Carlo, ten drawings from the Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino collection were carefully examined by David Nahmad, recognized as one of the most important art merchants and collectors in the world, who recognized them as authentic Francis Bacon artworks. The drawings in question have been the subject of three conventions held in: Buenos Aires, Espacio Multiarte — SIGEN, October 22, 2010; London, Open Forum, The Gallery in Cork Street, February 8, 2012; Prague, conference held in the Gate Gallery, June 26, 2012. Drawings in the aforementioned collection have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the following cities: Venice (2009–11), Zurich (2009), Milan (2010), Cento — Bologna (2010), Évora — Lisbon (2010), Buenos Aires: Museo Borges, Espacio Multiarte — SIGEN (2010), Berlin (2010), Paris (2011), Santiago del Chile (2011), London (2011–12), Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2012), Prague (2012), Aguascalientes (Mexico), from November 7, 2012 to February 10, 2013. The exhibition held in Cento, Ferrara, was funded by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities; the exhibition held at SIGEN in Buenos Aires was funded by the Argentine Ministry of culture as well as the Argentine national bank; the exhibition held in the Museo de Aguascalientes (Mexico) was funded by the Aguascalientes state government. Important critical texts and essays have been written about the Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino collection by the following experts: Giorgio Ruggeri, Giorgio Soavi, Edward Lucie-Smith, Alessandro Riva, Vittorio Sgarbi, Duccio Trombadori, Raffaele Gavarro, Horacio de Sosa Cordero, Serena Baccaglini and Pei-Ni Beatrice Hsieh. In 2008 the history of the drawings, as told through trial proceedings and other evidence and proof collected later, was published in a single volume entitled The Tip of an Iceberg, written by Umberto Guerini. In January 2012, the trial minutes, including the final sentence, were published in a word-for-word copy of the originals in a volume entitled The Recent History of the Italian Drawings by Francis Bacon. This volume also includes correspondence between one of the most important experts on British art history, art historian Brian Sewell, who was a friend of Francis Bacon and who, after a lengthy critical analysis and after having initially come out against the drawings, concluded that the only thing he can affirm beyond a shadow of a doubt is that “he had never seen their equal before.”

SIGNATURE: DATE: November 22, 2012

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WITNESS STATEMENT OF BRIAN & LYNDSAY HAYHOW On November 1, 2012 at 6 in the evening, in Bologna (Italy), 24 Strada Maggiore, in the legal offices of Guerini & Partners, I responded to questions asked of me by the lawyer Sig. Umberto Guerini. Before we began the interview, Sig. Umberto Guerini — with whom I had previously agreed to meet — informed me that he was proceeding in keeping with Italian laws (art. 391 bis c.p.p. and successive articles), acting as lawyer on behalf of his client Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, with reference to the drawings that Francis Bacon gave his client as gifts between 1977 and 1992. I was informed that the interview would be video-recorded, and that I was required to declare if I was the subject of any investigation or criminal proceedings in Italy or abroad with reference to the aforementioned drawings by Francis Bacon. I was informed that I could choose not to respond to the questions, and that in the event I chose to respond, I was obliged to tell the truth. Not having any conflicts either in Italy or abroad, I answered all the questions I was asked truthfully. I am aware that the transcription printed here below was copied verbatim from the video recording of the aforementioned interview by Sig. Aaron Mains, hired specifically for this job by Sig. Umberto Guerini.

Transcription of MVI_6070.MOV: Umberto Guerini : “Brian… Hayhow.” Lyndsay Hayhow (offscreen), Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Hayhow.” Umberto Guerini : “Hayhow. You have heard what your wife told me now…” Brian Hayhow : “Yes.” Umberto Guerini : “And… What have you to tell about… what you have heard?” Brian Hayhow : “Well, I was a senior partner in medical practice in Sudbury, Suffolk and Cornard. And

I was called… I believe… on a Friday or Saturday afternoon — I cannot remember exactly when — around about 1988, by John Tanner. He said that he was worried about David Edwards’s brother, John, because he had severe abdominal pain. I visited John Edwards, as a patient. And at that time he was staying in Westgate House in Long Melford. I diagnosed an acute abdomen. He gave me a history of being treated by his London doctor, periodically over the previous nine months, for what he called ‘intermittent acute appendicitis.’ Treatment for any sort of appendicitis is operation. And he had simply been given, by his London doctor, antibiotics, which only served to restrict the infection. I was worried because I felt he was developing a peritonitis. I admitted him immediately, with an emergency ambulance, to West Suffolk Hospital, under the surgeons. That night, he was operated on. He had a burst appendix, which was stuck through the back of his colon, and it required careful dissection. And removal of scar tissue. And he was quite poorly, for 48 hours. Naturally, John Tanner and David spoke to Francis Bacon, and then saw him periodically — I’m not absolutely sure how often — over the next seven or eight days that he was in the hospital. He had a drain, and he was quite poorly, initially, after the operation. But was able to be discharged some time between eight and ten days after his admission. I saw him at home with Francis and — quite unexpectedly — Francis gave me two drawings, and a catalogue which he signed in felt tip, and

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was, naturally, pleased. I did not seek symbols of his gratitude, but he was… extremely… happy. And angry with the London doctor, for negligently treating his great friend, John Edwards.” Umberto Guerini : “And, excuse me, you have the catalogue? You have the drawings, and the catalogue too?” Brian Hayhow : “I think the drawings are with the catalogue, which is in a box. We have moved, as my wife said, several times, and we have still crates of boxes. We had to move quite quickly… We had a hundred and thirty-six boxes…” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Wow!” Brian Hayhow : “And… I’m sure that I cleared furniture, bureaus… completely, into the box. So, it is now my plan, before the winter, before any damage, to go through all the papers, all the books, in this shed — large shed — in a farm, which is about three or four miles from us.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “I mean it’s twice… Can I just say how big the shed is? I mean, it… it would swallow this… this floor twice over…” Brian Hayhow (offscreen) : “It’s like a hangar…” Umberto Guerini : “It’s not important… You remember that he gave you also a catalogue. Two drawings and a catalogue.” Brian Hayhow : “Yes.” Umberto Guerini : “Okay.” Brian Hayhow : “And I hope that the sketch that he took of my daughter, Sophie, is with the catalogue. I have a feeling it might be. Because I put them together. So I just need to… search. And it is a safe warehouse. Only I have the key, and the padlock is intact, so it has not been tampered with by anyone. Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Okay. Fantastic. Perfect. Thank you…” Umberto Guerini : “And… But… And after this time, you have also had meetings with Francis?” Brian Hayhow : “Yes, yes. We used to go to… Very often, we went to houses in Long Melford together. Reed Crawford’s, as my wife has said. Sandy Cooke’s, our own house, and the… the… a large pub… I remember one Sunday morning, in the Black Lion Hotel, there were a bunch of us… The sun was shining, it was cheerful, and Francis was in a particularly good mood. And… He was a great raconteur, great fun. One thing that I did realize, was that he was a very private man, Francis. And… I got the impression that he disliked talking about his art, when he was in the country. He was amongst friends, and loved ones, he loved David Edwards, John Edwards, his family. This is where he… This is how he relaxed. So it was almost an unwritten law, that we didn’t probe about his professional life.” Umberto Guerini : “And have you seen other drawings there, after this? After the time that he gave these two, have you seen other drawings?” Lyndsay Hayhow and Brian Hayhow (together) : “Uhm…” “Since then…” Umberto Guerini : “No but… You can answer too, because I don’t remember to ask… to take this question… Have you seen others?” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes. I have, yes.” Umberto Guerini : “Yes? Of Francis?” Brian Hayhow : “Yes. Yes. I mean… It was normal, to see drawings. It didn’t make a great impression.” Umberto Guerini : “It was normal to… For Francis, it was normal to do drawings?” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “To draw.” Umberto Guerini : “To draw?” Lyndsay Hayhow and Brian Hayhow (together) : “Yes, yes.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “It’s absolutely nonsense to say otherwise.” Brian Hayhow : “Crayons and other… Biro, felt-tip…” (Laughs.) Umberto Guerini (addressing Lyndsay Hayhow) : “And you remember some circumstances… The circumstances…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Oh, circumstances.”

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Umberto Guerini : “Yes, I’m sorry. My English is not so fluent like yours…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “No, no. It’s excellent.” Umberto Guerini : “No, it’s no true… But you are very kind!” Lyndsay Hayhow : “It’s true! Cross-examine me, Umberto!”

(Everyone laughs.) Umberto Guerini : “And when, and where… Do you remember? When and where you have seen other

drawings by him?” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes!.. Certainly at Dale’s Farmhouse. Absolutely at Dale’s Farmhouse. In the… long

room that had French windows and… I don’t know what to call it… but went into the… into… There’s a path that went down towards where he worked, at Dale’s Farmhouse. I don’t know… If I went there, I could show you.” Umberto Guerini : “And where… Where his farm is? Near your?..” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Dale’s Farm? Yes, Dale’s Farm… I don’t know the address. But I’ve been there enough times… Can someone help me, please, with the address? I’m just looking up for the address…” END — 8:31 London, February 28, 2013 Brian Hayhow born in London date of birth 10.06.1946 resident in Foxearth, Nr Sudbury, Suffolk signature Lyndsay Hayhow born in London date of birth 21st March 1947 resident in Foxearth, Suffolk signature

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WITNESS STATEMENT OF LYNDSAY HAYHOW On November 1, 2012 at 6 in the evening, in Bologna (Italy), 24 Strada Maggiore, in the legal offices of Guerini & Partners, I responded to questions asked of me by the lawyer Sig. Umberto Guerini. Before we began the interview, Sig. Umberto Guerini — with whom I had previously agreed to meet — informed me that he was proceeding in keeping with Italian laws (art. 391 bis c.p.p. and successive articles), acting as lawyer on behalf of his client Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, with reference to the drawings that Francis Bacon gave his client as gifts between 1977 and 1992. I was informed that the interview would be video-recorded, and that I was required to declare if I was the subject of any investigation or criminal proceedings in Italy or abroad with reference to the aforementioned drawings by Francis Bacon. I was informed that I could choose not to respond to the questions, and that in the event I chose to respond, I was obliged to tell the truth. Not having any conflicts either in Italy or abroad, I answered all the questions I was asked truthfully. I am aware that the transcription printed here below was copied verbatim from the video recording of the aforementioned interview by Sig. Aaron Mains, hired specifically for this job by Sig. Umberto Guerini.

Transcription of MVI_6072: Male voice offscreen : “Never.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “No, never.” Cristiano Ravarino : “Stanstead normal.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Stanstead normal. Thank you… Do we have the postcode, of it at all, that was from… Because it’s big. It’s on the corner… uhm… uhm…” Brian Hayhow : “Screened by trees.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes, but it’s got a fence round it.” END — 0 :18

Transcription of MVI_6073: Lyndsay Hayhow : “…in which Francis would work…” Female voice offscreen (Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser?) : “Well, it was more of a cottage, really…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Well, I called it a shed… But… it was a cottage, really, wasn’t it?” Female voice offscreen (Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser?) : “It was a cottage, I think.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes.” Umberto Guerini : “And the things you discovered there, are the drawings?” Lyndsay Hayhow, Female voice offscreen (Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser?), Brian Hayhow : “Yes, yes.”

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Brian Hayhow : “And in folders, and lying around in wastepaper baskets…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “And on the floor…” Female voice offscreen (Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser?): “We didn’t think anything of it.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “We didn’t think anything. We all saw it.” Umberto Guerini : “Did Reggy see too?” Lyndsay Hayhow, Female voice offscreen (Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser?) : “ Yes, yes… Of course!” Lyndsay Hayhow : “I mean, we’ve all seen them. We’ve all seen the bundles.” Umberto Guerini : “It is impossible… She isn’t here, and it is impossible.” Cristiano Ravarino (partially unclear) : “Okay, okay… and she was a great friend too…” Umberto Guerini : “And so, specifically… specifically…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “One of our best friends…” Cristiano Ravarino : “And was it similar to these drawings?” Umberto Guerini : “No, no, no… another question.” Cristiano Ravarino : “Oh, excuse me…” Umberto Guerini : “I have another question.” Cristiano Ravarino : “Okay, sorry.” Umberto Guerini : “You know this drawing because it is yours.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes.” Umberto Guerini : “And the others that you have seen, are similar to this one?” (Indicating the drawing

on the table in front of Lyndsay Hayhow.) Lyndsay Hayhow : “Not the same… They’re similar, yes. But different sizes.” Female voice offscreen (Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser?), Cristiano Ravarino : “The same style, same style.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Same style, yes, of course. I didn’t look and think, ‘My goodness! That’s by… another artist.’” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser (now visible in image) : “This was at the time when Francis wasn’t… as huge. He was obviously very expensive, very popular. But he was not… what he is now. You know? Yes, we knew he was a great artist, but…” END — 1: 23

Transcription of MVI_6074: Lyndsay Hayhow : “No.” Umberto Guerini : “No.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “No… I mean… No, I didn’t look for signatures. To say, ‘My goodness that’s signed,’ or

‘No, that’s not signed.’” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Because I asked for signatures… Because when I asked Francis to put a signature — excuse me if I… but this is important — they were with no signatures, because that was very mysterious…” Umberto Guerini (interrupting) : “Please, wait… I am…” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “I asked later, to put signatures…” Umberto Guerini (interrupting) : “I am interested only in the ones that have or don’t have signatures!” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Okay.” Umberto Guerini (talking to Lyndsay Hayhow) : “In this that is yours, surely there are signatures from Francis Bacon.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes, yes.”

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Umberto Guerini : “Okay. The others, you don’t remember, because…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “This is how it was received. Can I just explain? This is how it was received (indicating the

drawing on the table). In the shed, or the cottage, or the escape… You know, whatever you want to call it… Attached… not attached… It was just down… There was a big flagstone path that led down to it. In there, there were drawings. Alright? Also, I think, paintings.” Umberto Guerini : “Paintings too?” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Yes. There were drawings… I didn’t look if there were signatures…” Umberto Guerini : “Yes, yes. I understand perfectly.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “As my friend, Mrs. Sheaser said… I would walk in there, and I was just careful not to step on them! You know, on the floor… I can’t tell you what it was like… Uhm… A bit of an English thing… You know, you don’t… sort of… comment on it. I might, you know, say: ‘Oh, busy?’…But I didn’t look to see if there were signatures.” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Yeah, of course. It’s not important.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “I’m sure that there were lots…” Umberto Guerini : “Okay.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “Whether he signed them, I can’t say. But, you know, there was loads of paper… I can’t tell you, I’m so sorry.” Umberto Guerini : “And you continued to see Francis, until his death?” Lyndsay Hayhow, Brian Hayhow : “Yes, yes.” Umberto Guerini : “So, for six years?” Brian Hayhow : “Yes.” Umberto Guerini : “Because that was… 1986, and…” Brian Hayhow : “Well I can’t say for sure. I can’t be sure. It’s certain that, uhm… Obviously, Francis was alive. And I have a feeling that John was, uhm…” Lyndsay Hayhow (talking at the same time) : “When… when… We can certainly isolate it from the time… There was a couple of years, or more… before… before John was taken ill, wasn’t it?” Brian Hayhow : “Oh, yes! Good!” Lyndsay Hayhow : “I was trying to think…” Brian Hayhow : “It was mid-eighties, maybe 1986, 1987. I can’t remember… Can you remember John? I can’t remember exactly.” Umberto Guerini (talking to Lyndsay Hayhow) : “Just what you remember…” Lyndsay Hayhow : “I think it was earlier. I think it was earlier.” Brian Hayhow : “Maybe 1986.” Male voice offscreen (Silver?) : “Francis signed the supplement in 1977.” Brian Hayhow : “So it was about ten years after that, I think.” Umberto Guerini : “1977?” Male voice offscreen (Silver?) : “Yes, that’s right.” Lyndsay Hayhow : “But I think it was the early eighties. Because I’m sure…” Brian Hayhow : “Well, let’s see… I became a senior partner in… I’m just trying to use things to get the date…” END — 3: 07 London, February 28, 2013 Lyndsay Hayhow born in London date of birth 21st March 1947 resident in Foxearth, Suffolk signature

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WITNESS STATEMENT OF MARGARET SKAWINSKI-SHEASER On November 1, 2012 at 6 in the evening, in Bologna (Italy), 24 Strada Maggiore, in the legal offices of Guerini & Partners, I responded to questions asked of me by the lawyer Sig. Umberto Guerini. Before we began the interview, Sig. Umberto Guerini — with whom I had previously agreed to meet — informed me that he was proceeding in keeping with Italian laws (art. 391 bis c.p.p. and successive articles), acting as lawyer on behalf of his client Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, with reference to the drawings that Francis Bacon gave his client as gifts between 1977 and 1992. I was informed that the interview would be video-recorded, and that I was required to declare if I was the subject of any investigation or criminal proceedings in Italy or abroad with reference to the aforementioned drawings by Francis Bacon. I was informed that I could choose not to respond to the questions, and that in the event I chose to respond, I was obliged to tell the truth. Not having any conflicts either in Italy or abroad, I answered all the questions I was asked truthfully. I am aware that the transcription printed here below was copied verbatim from the video recording of the aforementioned interview by Sig. Aaron Mains, hired specifically for this job by Sig. Umberto Guerini.

Transcription of Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser interview (November 1, 2012): Umberto Guerini : “Maggie… Maggie or Margaret?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Maggie.” Umberto Guerini : “You have known Francis Bacon?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : (Nods.) Umberto Guerini : “When… Do you remember when? The first time?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Yes, I was just thinking about this when Lyn (Lyndsay Hayhow) and Brian

(Brian Hayhow) were talking about it… My husband and I — my husband Hamish, who is now deceased — we moved to Suffolk properly in… 1984 or 1985. During that time. And I met John Edwards, and David, and John (Inaudible), and the wonderful people here… around about the same time. I do remember that my daughter — my first daughter — was born in 1985, and I do remember that she was just a little over a year old when we all met, so then we’re talking about… 1986? My God! (Smiling). And, of course, I knew Francis since then until when, sadly, he died. Which was very, very… awful. So… I do remember when I first met him. It was… well, of course I saw him all throughout this period of time, so of course I don’t remember every single time I met him. It was just… a lot of times. But I do remember when we very first met. It was in the summer of 1986. And this was also when I first met John Edwards… I think. Anyway, David and John said to me ‘there’s a party, at my brother’s, John Edwards’, at Dale Farm, which was where he was then living. I don’t think Dale Farm was long bought by that time, because then it got better and better, with landscape gardening and everything else. So yes, my husband Hamish and I were invited to go to a party, and we duly presented ourselves. And then, one of the sisters… which we were talking about not so long ago… one of the Edwards sisters said, ‘Who are you?’. And I said, ‘Well, we’ve been invited.’” (Laughs.) “This was when we very first met. Francis was absolutely delightful. And of course… this was in

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the days when Francis was a very well known painter, indeed, and selling for a lot of money. But my husband was not particularly… into the world of art, and Francis was not as much of a household name as he is today. So consequently, I knew who Francis was. And my… concern was… I mean I did hope… that Francis was going to be a ‘nice’ person. Because I loved his art already, so obviously you think, ‘Oh my God, I hope this person who is in front of me is going to be a nice person, as opposed to… you know.’ At the same time, my husband didn’t really know anything about Francis. Consequently, during the party, when he was speaking in front of — I remember because Francis and I laughed at it afterwards — he said to Francis, ‘And what do you do?’ And Francis said, ‘I’m a painter.’ So Hamish said, ‘Oh, you mean… fine art?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ So then he said, ‘Oh, do you manage to make a living out of this?’” (Everyone laughs.) Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “And Francis… I just find him… you know… He says, ‘Yes, yes, just about.’ So this was the first time I met Francis, and obviously for all those reasons it stuck in my memory, because he was not… full of airs and graces. He was very down-to-earth. And he became very good friends with my husband, even though my husband had no idea who he was at that particular period in time. He (her husband) is a scientist. Was. You know, so he… didn’t have that much of an idea who Francis was… I’m sorry, were you going to ask me something?” Umberto Guerini : “Yes. And then… You met in this period Francis, and then?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Well I knew Francis, say, from that point onwards. And of course John Edwards as well, the entire (Inaudible) family, etcetera. Yes, on very many occasions I was meeting up with Francis and John Edwards, and the entire (Inaudible) family at Dale Farm, (Inaudible), or Francis was inviting me for lunches and such in London. We were living in Suffolk at the time, but yes… my friendship with Francis was very, very close. I was… I was just saying to David… Should I be talking about this?” (Talking David, laughs.) “I said, well, we were perhaps a little bit younger. It was the 1980s. And on one occasion John Edwards said to me, ‘Well, I do know that you have a bit of coke — cocaine — with you, and Francis would like to try some.’ So, and I can’t say how, but Francis and I found ourselves upstairs, and I did give him a line, this being a party. I don’t think this has ever been recorded in a public forum! And he said, ‘Yes! This is very, very nice!’ I don’t know if he ever had any since, but on that particular occasion, yes. So, you can I suppose say that we were very, very close friends. Afterwards… Well, I don’t remember every time I met with Francis. I’ve got… as I’ve said, you know…” Umberto Guerini (offscreen) : “A lot of times.” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “A lot of times. A lot of times. We did actually talk about his art. Yes, he was not particularly keen, but yes we did talk about it. We were always… We used to joke, Francis and I, whenever there was a party we always ended up in a corner, you know, chatting. And yes, I did ask him about his art. So we did talk about that some of the time. And we talked… just general gossip, and we had a laugh, and you know passed the time. So, it was just like… like… you know… like with Brian or Lyn or anybody. You just met with him loads of times. I do remember… the only other occasion I do remember distinctly, because of the nature of the… Okay, there are three occasions I remember distinctly. The one was when we very first met; the second one was when he asked for a line of coke; the third one was… I was pregnant with my daughter, my number two daughter, so it must have been 1989. John Edwards phoned me and said, ‘We’re… Francis and I… we’re going to have lunch in Bibendum’ (Inaudible) which was Conrad’s… establishment at the time, and it was Francis’s favorite restaurant. And he said, ‘Francis has asked if you could make it, and have lunch with us?’ So I said, ‘Yes, okay.’ And I presented myself at the lunch. As I was pregnant at the time, that’s why I remember when it was. And then we talked about all sorts of things. And then at some point John Edwards went off to the loo, and we sort of talked about Francis’ inheritance and etcetera. So yes, those are the three occasions that I remember distinctly. Otherwise, there was just case of, well, you know, drinking, talking, sometimes about art; sometimes about something else. Yes, I do have a number of photographs and a number of things signed by Francis for me… lithographs, etcetera.” Umberto Guerini (offscreen) : “So you were Francis’ close friend?”

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Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Oh yes, we were very close friends. Yes.” Umberto Guerini (offscreen) : “And… there are a lot of things that I have in mind, but now we want only to

ask you about these drawings. Do you know these drawings? Have you seen before these drawings?” Cristiano Ravarino (offscreen) : “Or similar?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Well, I can’t say. No drawings were shown to me, because Francis’s drawings are very distinctive in style, but I’ve seen a lot of them. But, you know, he made drawings all the time, and at the farm in particular, you know. So yes, I have seen drawings.” Umberto Guerini (offscreen) : “So you have seen him draw?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “I have seen his drawings many times. I mean, all of his style, you know?” Umberto Guerini : “A few, or a lot?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Quite a few. Quite a few. I don’t know how many, because we’re talking about a period of… I don’t know… six years? Seven years? Whatever it was… 1986 until when he died, so it was about six years, wasn’t it? …Yes, I do remember when he did die, actually. I happened to be in my car, driving through Trafalgar Square, when I knew that he’s… you know, by telephone. So yes, you know, I’ve seen a number of his drawings.” Umberto Guerini : “…Of this style, or other styles… But can you tell if… he used to draw?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Yes! Of course he did. He was an artist. You know?” Umberto Guerini (laughing) : “That’s fantastic! Did you know that for a long time, for all of Francis’ life, he said that he never drew!” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Did he?” Umberto Guerini : “Yes!” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Well he never said that to me…” Umberto Guerini : “I am very happy to hear… because…” (Laughing.) Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “Well he never said it to me…” (Different voices speaking at the same time, offscreen and on: Inaudible for 10 seconds.) Cristiano Ravarino : “But then, in the last interview he changed. Before he died, he said ‘I draw.’ But it was a way to protect me… No, I want to explain you… It was a way to protect me, okay?” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “No, no, no… I’ve seen him draw on, you know, paper napkins and things.” Lyndsay Hayhow (offscreen) : “Yes!” Cristiano Ravarino : “It was a way to protect me, not to publicize too much… the drawings.” Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser : “No, no. I’ve seen him draw, you know? I mean, to be honest with you, I’ve never seen him make a big thing about this. But of course he used to draw…” END — 10 : 35 London, February 28, 2013 Margaret Skawinski-Sheaser born in Lodz, Poland date of birth 20.03.1952 resident in London signature

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WITNESS STATEMENT OF AMBRA DRAGHETTI IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE APPEAL REF: 2012/0383 CHANCERY DIVISION ON APPEAL FROM THE CAMBRIDGE COUNTY COURT JOHN FREDERICK TANNER, Appellant v. NIGEL MILLAR (TRUSTEE), Respondent

I, Ambra Draghetti, make this witness statement regarding the appeal of John Tanner, the Appellant, from an order of District Judge Pelly in the Cambridge County Court on the May 31, 2012. This statement is made as evidence regarding the memorabilia (the art) which is the subject matter of the drawings donated from Francis Bacon to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. I am Ambra Draghetti, official expert of Bologna Courts from 1992.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH 1) As part of an Italian court case (No. 878/97 RG — 12804/00) brought against Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, accused of having falsified and attempted to sell drawings by Francis Bacon, I was hired as a technical consultant to the Italian prosecution; 2) as a consultant, I conducted an expert investigation of the signatures present on the materials presented in the case (mentioned here above), and I concluded that some of the signatures — displaying the general characteristics and particular details of the graphic functions of Francis Bacon’s handwriting — were in all likelihood attributable to the artist’s hand. The small lack of certainty was due to the limited handwriting samples I had available to use for comparison, as well as my lack of knowledge about the physical conditions under which the signatures were made: for example, whether or not the signee was drunk or under the influence of other substances; 3) later, in light of the proof of Francis Bacon’s presence in Italy and in Bologna, after testimony from people who declared that they received drawings from Francis Bacon, and after having gained certainty — fol-

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lowing the appearance of Barry Joule’s drawings, which were produced by Francis Bacon — I chose to accept Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino’s request that I examine the drawings he owns. Based on numerous comparisons with writing samples that we know for certain are from Francis Bacon, some of which were original, I was therefore able to examine the entire body of artwork given by Francis Bacon to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, searching for evidence of graphic individuality not only in the signatures on the drawings, but also in the lines, marks and movements used to create the drawings. 4) My opinions concerning the signatures on the drawings and the graphic signs and marks that make up the drawings themselves can be summed up as follows: “Drawings, painting and even sculpture have numerous things in common with writing, and specifically with the manuscript, sharing identifying indexes of shape, space, dynamism, pressure and dimensional energies, aesthetics, minute and automatic gestures, scriptural laws, all of which are the result of a single person’s unique and unrepeatable individual personality.” This close relationship between the visual arts and manuscripts (referred to from here on out as simply “writing” or “handwriting”) is acknowledged by a number of experts in graphology to the point that they affirm that “a graphologist who cannot interpret a work of art, will never be able to truly see nor interpret individual handwriting.” Graphology studies handwriting, shedding light on its intellective and temperamental characteristics (1), but a further specialization of forensic graphology is aimed at identifying the hand doing the writing in order to validate — or refute — signatures and handwritten documents, just as it can be used to examine drawings or paintings (yet another physio-neuro-psychological in every sense), only this time in order to authenticate the artworks under question. When it comes to artwork, an essential prerequisite is the ability to guarantee its owner or potential purchaser the authenticity of the work in question, including where it is from and its relative artistic value. This in order to determine if: — we are looking at an authentic artwork with a false signature; — we are in the presence of a false work of art with an authentic signature; — we are looking at an authentic work of art with an authentic signature. Therefore any evaluation of an artwork as a whole, whether it is a drawing or a painting, that displays an artist’s signature is by definition fertile terrain for graphological analysis. In light of the many new things that have happened, in light of the denials and reviews presented by biographers of the English-Irish painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992), all previous aimed at demonstrating the inability, or unwillingness of Bacon to draft drawings, not even as sketches for his paintings; in light of the demonstrable presence and habitual stays in Italian places that were never named nor cited by his biographers; in light of the iron-willed determination of professor and lawyer Umberto Guerini to reopen a technical discourse aimed to resolve, once and for all, the search for a “Signum Baconiensia” within the “Italian” drawings. The methodological approach that is to be undertaken here is that of the leader in Italian graphology, Father Girolamo Moretti (2), and therefore utilizing the instruments and skills available to the forensic graphologist, as taught at the Libera Universitá in Urbino (3). Obviously all work was conducted bearing in mind the methods employed by other experts (4), and all with the intent of analyzing the graphic gestures present in the drawings on more than one level. Given what I have read and observed thus far, examinations of these artworks have depended upon evaluations that are far from the procedural canons established thus far, and the elements of verifiability of empirical science. This essay, while it does not ignore the importance of perceptive and intuitive evaluation, has been based on criteria that can be verified and reproduced. It is an autonomous graphological approach, independent from other disciplines (though not separate from them), given that the interdisciplinary approach considered indispensable today in every area of knowledge is of course equally important in graphology.

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Therefore, the scientific route followed by the forensic graphologist is aimed at verifying the authenticity — or the non-authenticity — of drawings allegedly by Francis Bacon, first utilizing technical-instrumental methods, then proceeding with the identification of historical and anamnestic data on facts and persons, and ultimately correlating everything with writtenaesthetic-critical investigations.

Technical-Instrumental Findings The “Italian” drawings signed by “Francis Bacon” in Mr. Umberto Guerini’s possession were examined with the help of a stereomicroscope with fiber optic light. Portions of the paper surface of the drawings were scanned, both with and without graphic traces, in order to elaborate 3D images. Everything that was inspected, observed and evaluated leads us to believe without a shadow of a doubt that these are original drawings, and not an instrumental reproduction of other original drawings.

Biographical-historical/anamnestic Data A graphologist must in every case be aware of the biographical, historical and anamnestic data of the person who has written, drawn, painted or designed the documents in question. It is impossible to ignore that which has “taken place earlier,” since this knowledge allows the expert to initiate an appropriately wellfounded investigation. As far as Francis Bacon is concerned, we are familiar with his emotionally bleak childhood; his sickly health due to asthma and allergies, which ultimately led him to take morphine at a very young age; his primary school experiences and learning how to write in keeping with the British model utilized at the time; his awareness of his own homosexuality already when he was 15 years old; his self-taught cultural and artistic training; his precise perception of his own artistic value only beginning in 1944–45, after countless disappointments that led him to destroy roughly 700 of his artworks; his distinctive personality, one that made him both explosive when expressing personal feelings and implosive when trust was undermined; and that he made no drawings of any kind underneath his paintings, and especially that he claimed often and repeatedly that he did not make sketches or drafts, in other words did not make drawings. And yet Italy, cited by biographers as a place to which Bacon made quick trips, is a place that remained in his thoughts, so much so that he stayed in Italy more than once for personal reasons, visits that were not connected to exhibitions, and were made almost clandestinely, during which he left behind primogenial signs of himself no matter what others claim. This story begins in 1977, at the French embassy in Rome (Villa Medici), at the French Academy for the farewell party for the then-cultural attaché Balthus, when Bacon met a young Italian man, Cristiano Ravarino Lovatelli, a journalist from Bologna, with whom he became involved and remained in contact with all the way until 1992, the year Bacon passed away. It has been documented and demonstrated that Francis Bacon spent more than one night together with Cristiano Ravarino in both well known Italian locations like Bologna, Venice, Ferrara, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Rome, the Aeolian Islands, as well as less well known locations like Calderino di Monte S. Pietro, which Bacon was nevertheless familiar with (5). Often during these travels, usually in the company of his Italian friend, Bacon’s explosive character emerged after he’d been drinking or when he grew angry after having been recognized, and he would damage locales, things and people. But once Bacon got over the folly of the moment, he would earn forgiveness by randomly distributing drawings to those involved.

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Once again from a historical point of view during 1981–82, therefore in a period free of suspicion, articles appeared in both local and national newspapers noting the English-Irish painter’s presence in a certain locale in Bologna. In May 1981 at the Galleria Nanni in Bologna, a small exhibition of some of his first “Italian” drawings was held. In the catalogue written by Giorgio Ruggeri: “As in some of his more important paintings, in these drawings of poor countenances, which seem almost sketched out of spite, there is not simply a cry, a grimace or a simple psychic state. There is a great deal of all of us in those faces.” Bacon never made any protest over these publicized aspects of his life and art, unlike with the Marlborough Gallery, with which Bacon had an exclusive agreement, and which in 1980 sent the Italian Cultural Institute in London a protest, signed by Valerie Beston, for the interviews that had appeared following Bacon’s travels to Bologna, maintaining genetically within the protest that “none of it was true.” However, these protests did not affect the substance of what Bacon had already done, nor what he would later do. Therefore, it is certain that Cristiano Ravarino Lovatelli and Francis Bacon spent a great deal of time together between 1977 and 1992, that Bacon made drawings and that Ravarino possessed a number of his drawings. With a sentence delivered in 2004, the Italian court established, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the drawings that are the current subject of legal proceedings against Sig. Cristiano Ravarino, initiated in 1996, could not have come from any other source than Francis Bacon, because dozens and dozens of witnesses had seen Bacon in Ravarino’s company, enjoying himself by giving them away as gifts, including to complete strangers. Written-aesthetic-critical investigation designed to recognize — or refute — the distinctive hand of Francis Bacon in the “Italian” drawings. We have already noted that biographical data are important in attempting to recognize the origins of written graphic marks, whether handwriting, drawing or painting, just as it is believed that these two life moments of Bacon’s, with all that happened as part of these moments, are correlated and can be explained in two “Laws” that are adopted and utilized by graphologists; in other words the “Law of expression” and the “Law of Representation” as described by Klages. These two physiological mechanisms (with psychological implications) probably unleashed the range of Bacon’s pictorial artwork that we are familiar with, to his success, and by reflection supply knowledge about his drawing style. In 1944 Bacon visited the Albert and Victoria Museum in London to see the photographic exhibition of Muybridge’s work. This marked the start of an almost unhealthy passion for photography, despite the fact that he recognized almost none of its aesthetic values. Bacon surrounded himself with photographs, painted portraits based on photographs of the subject, studied photographs of older paintings and abandoned himself in an extraordinary manner to the photograph as if he were interacting with and through the photographic medium. The period lasting from 1944 to 1945 was considered the beginning of Bacon’s real art, so much so that — unlike during the preceding period — he protected his artworks from his own destructive desires, and this period marks the beginning of his artistic consecration. The most important museums in the world began buying his works. Effectively, thanks to the laws of handwriting, we know that every spontaneous movement, therefore the written gesture as well, simply translated the experiential content expressed by each of us, choosing the form and movement that represent its consolidated image, rendering it acceptable, personal and irreproducible. Evidently Bacon had found, or better yet saw himself reflected, in the movements, deformations, distortions and outlines that could be created through photography. If drawing tells a tale, because it is by design, painting deals with instinct and Bacon’s “real painting” began when Bacon himself instinctively took, finally, that resonance and biunique consonance that lies between the organic and the psychic that is inherent to photography. Law of representation: “Each spontaneous movement is conditioned by the unconscious expectation of its exteriorized result. Each spontaneous movement is unconsciously conditioned by its personal, anticipatory image” (Leitbild).

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It is not possible to find an artist who is not recognizable by his or her “mark,” be it painted or drawn. Why shouldn’t the same be true for Bacon, through his “Italian” drawings? 1) The first impression one has looking at Bacon’s “Italian” drawings is that, despite their deformations or incomplete shapes and forms, especially in the faces and limbs, they have nothing to do with caricatures. There is a minimum limit between caricature and deformation, and yet the “Italian” drawings do not breach this boundary because they are not satirical, but merely an expression of “poor countenances.” One has the same impression looking at Bacon’s paintings. 2) The “Italian” drawings were mainly done with both soft and hard graphite, just as some lines impressed with graphite express a level of force that creates a furrow that bends the paper, but does not break it. We can identify a search of materiality, for resistance, in this modus operandi. As a painter, Bacon needed a surface that could resist the force of his gestures, so much so that he painted the backside of his canvases, just as he used large, thick brushes or even his hands to spread color around. 3) Bacon’s earliest “Italian” drawings (those used for the procedure), are in A4 or A3 formats, basically the paper Sig. Cristiano Ravarino used for his work as a journalist. Other drawings are on thicker, far larger pieces of paper: 70 x 100; 100 x 150, by specific request from Bacon. It is worth remembering Coulomb’s Law concerning energy, according to which during a man’s normal work, in order to avoid fatigue, he utilizes 4/9 of his strength, which he can produce spontaneously and at will. Nevertheless, the person who produced the “Italian” drawings knew how to work in small and large sizes effortlessly, with no difficulty, spontaneously, just as Bacon’s paintings can be medium-small (for example 35.5 x 35.5) or quite large (198 x 147.5). Therefore the individuality of the expressive gesture that created the “Italian” drawings and the expressive gesture in Bacon’s drawings share the same modality of releasing energy. 4) Some of the “Italian” drawings were realized with colored pastels, and the colors selected were typical of Bacon the painter: orange, green, electric blue, often amplified in the background (see drawings A 131 — A 132). 5) The background of Bacon the painter is extremely personal because, unlike the subject, it is formed of a film of extremely light color, and we find in the “Italian” drawings created with pastels that the background is an extremely light piece of paper that has been glued on. 6) It is common for the “Italian” drawings observed to present sections of paper that have been removed; cuts sometimes intended to generate “collages”; additions put on in order to amplify the surface that could be drawn on; backdrops of colored light colored paper that has been glued on. Barry Joule’s archives have confirmed that these are things Bacon was accustomed to doing. 7) In the “Italian” drawings there is a frequent use of “masking paper,” usually employed by designers in order to trace circular and elliptical shapes, arrows or other morphologies, another particularity of Bacon’s painting style. 8) The themes present in the “Italian” drawings are the same as in Bacon’s painting: self-portraits, images of Pope Innocent X, screaming mouths and gritted teeth, huddling, staring empty eyes and ocular cavities, animal-men, grotesque torsos, hair, gradual isolation of the figure. 9) The anatomical aspects of the “Italian” drawings correspond with Bacon’s painting: eyes and gazes blinded by light, hair standing on end, grimacing mouths, heart-shaped teeth, unclear or absent hands. 10) Generally speaking, the “Italian” drawings are of solitary figures, formed of a head, face, torso, all of which are more or less deformed or unformed, and Bacon mainly drew one figure at a time. 11) In the “Italian” drawings there are few full-bodied figures, except in several animal-man drawings that have obvious sex organs, a condition rarely seen in Bacon’s painting, but which corresponds to drawing XI2verso contained in Barry Joule’s archives. 12) The “Italian” drawings present abundant use of an eraser, not to correct but to deform, modify the body. Erasures are imperfect, leaving preexisting marks visible, as if there was a desire to generate ulterior visual confusion. The presence of drawings or sketches on different sides of the same piece of paper is an expression both of a lack of interest in perfection or credibility, and as the desire of attempting and then trying again what had always been one of Bacon’s aspirations: to draw.

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13) Tiny, automatic written gestures can be found in the details, because they escape an eventual imitator’s observation and often betray physical movement similar to that of a personal tic, and are a constant in both Bacon’s drawing and his painting. a) “Scratches” that make an impression on the paper but do not puncture it. b) Micro-scratches, or rather multiple points in sequence, designed to create a consequential trace. (Found quite frequently in the small faces, as well as in his painting, for example in the bicycle in Portrait of George Dyer Riding a Bicycle). c) Scratched lines and points drawn very quickly and lying somewhat parallel to one another, devoid of illustrative functions but intended to fill the object in an almost obsessive manner (for example in the Figure in a Landscape, 1950). d) White spaces in the drawings that display constant shapes and relationships that are similar to those found in light-colored or white brushstrokes. 14) One cannot note any kind of careful movement, so much so that for many people the first impression of his works is one of chaos, disturbance and unsettlement. Similarly, at first glance the “Italian” drawings do not provide any sensation of “attractiveness,” though they becom striking upon further examination. In many of the “Italian” drawings, Bacon the painter commands the drawer, and this early aesthetic “non-attractiveness” gives way to the sense of a titanic hand. In many other drawings, especially in the self-portraits, Bacon wanted to be a drawer in every sense, but they lead us back to the fixedness of the artist’s initial phases. Making a comparison with his 1931–32 Portrait, we see the face of a desperate, despairing, static Pierrot that returns obsessively in the “Italian” drawings from the 1980s. Last but not least, these are a series of drawings that are not sketches, but rather the beginnings of a drawing that have been interrupted or left unfinished. In light of a full forensic graphological evaluation of all the “Italian” drawings indicated as having been produced by Francis Bacon, there is no choice but to point out that the same handwritten-executive gestures expressed in Bacon’s paintings can be found here, to such a point that the drawings examined cannot but have been created by Francis Bacon. In closing, concerning the signatures on the “Italian” drawings that are not the object of court proceedings, which read “Francis Bacon” and were written with the maximum executive spontaneity, the product of the same unique hand, in comparison with the signatures available for this comparison, I find them to be significantly compatible with the school handwriting of Bacon’s primary school years in England, as well as with the only signatures found in his paintings from the 1930s. As a result, at the moment I cannot but affirm that the signatures found in the “Italian” drawings are representative of Francis Bacon’s handwriting, and therefore are authentic signatures. In Faith, Graphologist (Ambra Draghetti) Bologna, February 5, 2011

Notes 1. G. Moretti, Trattato di Grafologia : Intelligenza — Sentimento, XII edizione, Padova, Messaggero, 1980. 2. The Italian school of graphology was founded by Girolamo Moretti (1879–1963), a brother of the Order of Minor Convents, who first began to design and organize a personal and autonomous method in 1905.

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3. The High School of Graphological Studies at Urbino University, a four-year program created and organized by the Moretti graphological institute of Urbino in 1977, and which has been a university degree course at the Urbino University since 2000, part of the degree program for sciences of education and training. The relevant degree is a “Degree in Graphological Techniques.” 4. The masters around whom the construction of the science of graphology is developed and to which everyone must refer are: (For France) Jules Crépieux-Jamin (1859–1940); (for Germany) Ludwig Klages (1872–1956); (for Italy) Girolamo Moretti (1879–1963). All three of these men designed and created a personal, autonomous analytical method, but it is equally important to underline how, despite the fact that they came from different cultures and started from different methodological training, observing other men according to different facets, all three followed initial and analogous intuitions to reach the same exact conclusions. 5. In 1975, Bacon visited the London exhibition organized by Denis Mahon that focused on demonic drawings of Guercino, and the catalogue cited “Calderino di Monte S. Pietro,” as the place where the owners of the drawings, the Marchesi Rusconi, lived.

Bibliography G. Moretti, Trattato Scientifico di Perizie Grafiche su Base Grafologica, L’Albero, Verona, 1942, III. G. Moretti, Trattato di Grafologia, XII edizione, Padova, Messaggero, 1980. N. Palaferri, Dizionario Grafologico, IV edizione, Libreria Moretti, Urbino, 1993. Palaferri, L’Indagine Grafologica e il Metodo Morettiano, Libreria Moretti, Urbino, 1993. L. Torbidoni, L. Zanin, Grafologia. Testo Teorico Pratico, Editrice La Scuola, 1978. B. Vettorazzo, Metodologia della Perizia Grafica su Base Grafologica, Giuffrè Editore, 1998. B. Vettorazzo, Grafologia Giudiziaria e Perizia Grafica, Giuffrè Editore, 1987. M. Rampin, M. Botteri, “Aspetti della Modulazione delle Afferenze Propriocettive Nella Esecuzione del Gesto Grafico,” Rivista Scrittura, n. 76, 1990. J. Crépieux-Jamin, Le Basi Fondamentali della Grafologia e della Perizia in Scritture, Muggia, Torino, 1929. L. Klages, La Scrittura e il Carattere. Principi e Elementi di Grafologia, Mursia, 1982. A. R. Luria, Neuropsicologia del Linguaggio Grafico, Padova, Messaggero, 1984. R. Saudek, Psicologia della Scrittura, Padova, Messaggero, 1988. G. Serratrice, M. Habib, L’Écriture et le Cerveau, Masson, 1993. ADEG (Association Déontologique Européenne de Graphologie). Etudes sur l’Apprentissage de l’Écriture en Europe, 1999. C. Cappelletto, Neuroestetica, L’Arte del Cevello, Editori Laterza, 2009. R. Arnheim, Arte e Percezione Visiva, Feltrinelli, 2004. E. Lucie-Smith, Bacon i Disegni, Christian Maretti Editore, 2010. V. Sgarbi, D. Trombadori, Guercino: Bacon i Disegni, Christian Maretti Editore, 2010. A. Riva, Indagine su Bacon. Il Mistero Svelato dei “Disegni Italiani” del Grande Pittore Inglese, Christian Maretti Editore, 2010. E. Lucie-Smith, A. Agazzani, La Punta dell’Iceberg. I Disegni di Francis Bacon, Christian Maretti Editore, 2009. U. Guerini, La Punta dell’Iceberg. I Disegni di Francis Bacon, Christian Maretti Editore, 2008. M. Gale, C. Stephens, Francis Bacon, Tate Publishing, 2009.

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Aesthetics In Baconâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handwritten-pictorial gestures we do: M. Harrison, R. Daniels, Francis Bacon Incunabula, Thames & Hudson, 2008. M. Peppiat, Francis Bacon Anatomy of an Enigma, Constable, London, 2008. M. Harrison, In Camera Francis Bacon, Thames & Hudson, 2005. D. A. Mellor with Contributions by Barry Joule and Richard Hamilton, The Barry Joule Archive. Works on Paper Attributed to Francis Bacon, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2000. M. Gale, Francis Bacon Working on Paper, Tate Gallery Publishing, 1999. M. Leiris, Francis Bacon, Abscondita srl, 2001. A. Brighton, Francis Bacon, Tate Publishing, 2001. S. Falcone, Francis Bacon. Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Edipo Capovolto, Biblioteca Vivarium, 1998. G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon. Logica della Sensazione, Quodlibet, 1996.

Faithfully, Dr. Ambra Draghetti Grafologa giudiziaria

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FRANCIS BACON GIFT NOTE

2/4/88 I left all my drawings to Christian Ravarino. I am indebted to him and Italian renaissance culture. I also have the suspicion that in all those years Marlborough Gallery cheated and robbed me thanks to awkward situations created by the gallery itself. With love Francis Bacon

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FRANCIS BACON SIGNATURE ASSESSMENT

AMBRA DRAGHETTI Graphologist and official consultant to the Bologna Tribunal Expert assessment and graphological consultancy — Studio for graphic-graphological analysis and research. “Expertise” in artist autographs — Handwriting reeducation. Via Croce di Camaldoli 11 — 40141 Bologna — Tel. (+39) 051.4839063 — Fax. (+39) 051.481339 CF/DRG MBR 49B61 F288Z — P.IVA/03662150378 draghettiambra@libero.it ambradraghetti@arubapec.it CELL: (+39) 3355429732 Bologna, January 3, 2013 To: Umberto Guerini 24 Strada Maggiore 40125 Bologna, Italy Subject: A graphic/graphological analysis of the “deed of gift” I’m writing you in reference to your request that I determine whether or not the handwriting on the typewritten document, the contents of which constitute a deed of gift in favor of Cristiano Ravarino, can be identified with a degree of certainty as the graphic marks of Francis Bacon (1909–1992). I’ve attached the document in question together with this letter. The handwriting samples to be analyzed are the following: Date: “2/4/88” Signature: “Francis Bacon”

The date “2/4/88” The date “2/4/88” has been written with immediacy, the result of a certain, peremptory impulse, despite betraying, through its physical location on the page, a level of uncomfortable posture — for example that of someone standing up, possibly with the body located laterally with respect to the sheet of paper. (Note the direction of the handwriting: first descending and then returning in line.) Analysis of the date’s numeral morphology revealed considerable compatibility with similar handwritten forms attributed to Bacon. The number “8” in particular, with its upper circle open at the apex; as well as

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the angular value of the body of the “4”, and the small hook at the base of the central vertical line. We can also note the small and essential form of the higher portion of the “2.” The way the numbers are separated with slash marks, the extremes of which are slightly hooked, is also indicative of Francis Bacon’s method of writing and movement.

The signature “Francis Bacon” The signature has been signed in one rush, the product of excellent coordination and good organization. The marks are synergetic, and the connections between letters coherent. There is no sign of stopping or pausing. Comparisons with other handwritten signatures revealed both shared general graphic indicators (gestural movements, spatial axes — inclination, aligning, width — aesthetics, caliber, pressure, rhythm) as well as subject-specific and automatic graphic indicators (hooked tips, points on the “I”, openings in axisparaphs). The signature was undoubtedly written from a more comfortable posture with respect to the date, though not upon a perfectly flat and smooth writing surface.

In conclusion: the date (“2/4/88”) and signature (“Francis Bacon”) present on the typewritten document that constitutes a deed of gift in favor of Cristiano Ravarino, despite being analyzed from a photocopy, both demonstrate significant compatibility with the graphic movements of Francis Bacon, and therefore certainty of authenticity. Faithfully, (Ambra Draghetti) Forensic Graphologist (Document attached)

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LIST OF PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS & PUBLICATIONS OF FRANCIS BACON DRAWINGS FROM THE CRISTIANO LOVATELLI RAVARINO COLLECTION

5–31 May 1981 Galleria d’Arte Nanni, Via Dei Musei 8, Bologna, Italy Francis Bacon

2008 The Tip of an Iceberg by Umberto Guerini Christian Maretti Editore Paperback, 190 pp., 21 x 15 cm ISBN: 978-88-89965-59-7

5 June — 22 November 2009 Ca’ Zenobio degli Armeni, Venice, Italy La Punta dell’Iceberg (I disegni di Francis Bacon)

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20 June — 25 July 2009 Galerie Proarta, Zurich, Switzerland Francis Bacon: Attributed Drawings Paperback, 52 pp., 26.5 x 20.5 cm

2010 Cento — Bologna

26 March — 11 April 2010 Palazzo Durini, Milan, Italy Bacon: I disegni Hardback, 96 pp., 30 x 30 cm ISBN: 978-88-89965-85-6

2010 Indagine su Bacon by Alessandro Riva Christian Maretti Editore Paperback, 80 pp., 21 x 15 cm ISBN: 978-88-89965-84-9

30 June — 19 August 2010 Centro Cultural, Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina Bacon: La Punta del Iceberg Paperback, 76 pp., 29.5 x 21 cm

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10.

11–12.

5 July — 3 October 2010 Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, Évora, Portugal A Punto do Iceberg

10 July — 8 November 2010 Municipal Art Gallery, Pinacoteca Civica Il Guercino Cento, Ferrara, Italy Guercino — Bacon. I disegni Paperback, 76 pp., 29.5 x 25 cm ISBN: 978-88-89965-96-2

19 October — 10 December 2010 Espacio Multiarte — SIGEN, Buenos Aires, Argentina Bacon: The Tip of the Iceberg

2011 Santiago del Chile, Chile Bacon: La Punta del Iceberg

13.

2 June — 30 September 2011 San Marco 1957/A, Venice, Italy F Bacon 7 by Raffaele Gavarro Paperback, 76 pp., 25 x 18 cm

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14.

Guerini & Partners Avvocati The Recent History of the Italian Drawings by Francis Bacon La storia recente dei disegni italiani di Francis Bacon Trial records and Correspondence Atti del Processo e Corrispondenza Maretti Editore, 2012

15.

Guerini & Partners Avvocati The Recent History of the Italian Drawings by Francis Bacon La storia recente dei disegni italiani di Francis Bacon Critical Essays Testi di Critica Maretti Editore, 2012

16.

8–18 February 2012 Signum Baconiensia, The Gallery in Cork Street, London, United Kingdom no catalogue

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25 February — 20 May 2012 Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan Francis Bacon — The Tip of an Iceberg Paperback, 104 pp., 26 x 19 cm, CD included ISBN: 978-98-60317-67-1

18.

18 May — 22 July 2012 Gate Gallery and Information Centre, Prague, Czech Republic Francis Bacon & Bohumil Hrabal. Two Geniuses Paperback, 98 pp., 21 x 21 cm ISBN: 978-80-904461-7-5

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19.

7 November 2012 — 10 February 2013 Museo de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, Mexico Los Dibujos de Francis Bacon Paperback, 32 pp., 28 x 21.7 cm

20.

2013 The Challenge to Authenticity by Umberto Guerini FBF Publishing Paperback, 185 pp., 21 x 15 cm

21.

2013 Of Course He Used To Draw by Umberto Guerini FBF Publishing Paperback, 112 pp., 21 x 15 cm

22.

15 June — 7 September 2014 Paco Das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil Francis Bacon Italian Drawings Paperback, 72 pp., 21 x 21 cm

23.

2015 Francis Bacon. I disegni italiani. Un punto fermo The “Italian“ Drawings: a Point of Reference by M. Letizia Paoletti. Etgraphiae Editore Paperback, 40 pp. ISBN: 9788890868498

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Catalogue RaisonnĂŠ of Francis Bacon Drawings Donated to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino

ISBN XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ÂŠ Francis Bacon Foundation of the drawings donated to Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino, Bologna, 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders. All artwork dimensions are in cm.

General Editors Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino Umberto Guerini

Essays by Umberto Guerini Edward Lucie-Smith Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino

Photography Roberta Cavallari

Design & layout Kirill Shantgai

Published by Petronivs Publishing House