Three Figures in a Room

Three Figures in a Room, 1964. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Three Figures in a Room is a 1964 oil-on-canvas triptych painting by British artist Francis Bacon. Each panel measures 198 × 147 centimetres (78 × 58 in) and shows a separate view of his lover George Dyer, whom Bacon first met in 1963. It is the first of Bacon's works to feature Dyer, a model to whom he returned to repeatedly in his paintings. The work has been described as Bacon's first secular triptych.

Bacon had been painting triptychs since his in 1944 break-through Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Three Figures continues the theme of Bacon studying a single subject from different angles. Although painted on three separate canvases, each image occupies the same space, marked by a brown elliptical floor and yellowish walls which continue across the panels. The presence of a single model three times in the same space defies narrative explanation.

Bathers with a Turtle (Baigneuses), 1907-08. Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis

Dyer is depicted in three different positions, all twisted and contorted. Bacon uses large and vigorous brushstrokes to create distinctive splashes of colour. In the left panel, a naked Dyer sits on a toilet facing away from the viewer; he rests on a massive black bed or chair in the centre panel; and he is sitting contorted on a pedestal chair in the right panel. The creased back of the left figure may be inspired by Edgar Degas's drawing After the Bath, Woman drying herself, and also possibly by the Belvedere Torso. Art critic David Sylvester has suggested that the centre and right figures may be inspired by Michelangelo's sculptures in the Medici Chapel, and draws parallels with the three figures in Henri Matisse's Bathers with a Turtle.

The work was bought by the French state in 1968 and has been part of the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou since 1976.

References

Three Figures in a Room, Centre Georges Pompidou
David Sylvester, Francis Bacon à nouveau, éd. André Dimanche, Paris, 2006
‘Three Figures in a Room’ (1964) to Feature in Musée d’Orsay Exhibition
Reading Between the Lines: Claude Simon and the Visual Arts, Jean H. Duffy p,134-135
About Modern Art, David Sylvester p.461-2

Francis Bacon

Figures	Figure Study I (1945-56) Figure in a landscape (1945) Painting (1946) Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950) Study from the Human Body (1949) Study for Crouching Nude (1952) Dog (1952) Two Figures (1953) Three Studies from the Human Head (1953) Study for the Nurse in the film Battleship Potemkin (1957) Lying Figure (1966) Three Studies of the Male Back (1970) Three Figures and Portrait (1975) Two Seated Figures (1979) Carcase of Meat and Bird of Prey (1980) Diptych (1982-84) Blood on the Floor (Painting) (1986)

Head series	Head I Head II Head III Head IV Head V Head VI

Popes	Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) Popes I-VI (1953) Figure with Meat (1954) Study from Innocent X (1962)

Triptychs	Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) Three Studies for a Crucifixion (1962) Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe (1963) Three Figures in a Room (1964) Crucifixion (1965) Triptych inspired by T.S Elliot's 'Sweeney Agonistes' (1964) Three Studies for George Dyer (1967) Two Figures Lying on a bed with Attendants (1968) After Muybridge - Study of the Human Figure in Motion - Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water (1970) Triptych 1976 (1976) Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988)

Portraits	Study for Three Heads (1962) Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, (1963) Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer (1964) Double Portrait of Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach (1964) Study for a Portrait (Isabel Rawsthorn) (1964) Three Studies for the Head of Isabel Rawsthorn (1965) Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud (1965) Portrait of Lucian Freud (on Orange Couch) (1965) Portrait of George Dyer Talking (1966) Three Studies of Muriel Belcher (1966) Study for Head of George Dyer (1966) Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho (1967) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud (1967) Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) Three Studies of Henrietta Moraes laughing (1969) Female Nude Standing in a Doorway (1972) Three Studies for a Portrait of Peter Beard (1975) Portrait of Michel Leris, 1976 (1976) Portrait of Michel Leris, 1978 (1978) Sphinx: Portrait of Muriel Blecher (1979) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1980)

Black Triptychs	In Memory of George Dyer (1971) Triptych–August 1972 (1972) Triptych, May–June 1973 (1973)

Self-portraits	Self-portrait (1973) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1973) Self-portrait (1973) Seated Figure (1974) Sleeping Figure (1974) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1974) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1976) Three Studies for a Self Portrait (1979) Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86 (1985)

Summary articles	List of paintings by Francis Bacon List of large triptychs by Francis Bacon Triptychs by Francis Bacon The Black Triptychs Influences on

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