Francis Bacon between 1972 and 1974. Bacon admitted that they were created as an exorcism of his sense of loss following the 1972 suicide of his former lover and principal model, George Dyer. Two days before the opening of Bacon's triumphant and career-making retrospective at the Grand Palais, Dyer, then 37, alcoholic, deeply insecure and suffering severe and long-term depression, killed himself with an overdose of drink and barbiturates in a room at the Paris hotel Bacon had allowed him to share during a brief period of reconciliation following years of bitter recrimination.
This awareness was heightened by the death of many other close friends during the following decade. The most acute paintings after the loss of his friends are considered to be the many posthumous images of Dyer, including numerous heads and the three "Black triptychs", each painted within three years of 1972.
Each triptych shows views from moments before, during and after Dyer's death.
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