Francis Bacon’s first full-scale portrait of his lover George Dyer could fetch $50m at Sotheby’s in New York in May, less than two years since it hung on the walls of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London as part of the acclaimed exhibition, Man and Beast (29 January-14 April 2022).
But just how much can a museum show boost the value of a work? “There are good arguments both ways for whether a major exhibition changes the commercial market for certain artists work,” says Olly Barker, Sotheby’s chairman in Europe. In the case of the Sotheby’s picture—a 1966 canvas titled Portrait of George Dyer Crouching—Barker thinks the consignor is unlikely to have loaned the work to the RA with a view to raising its profile and therefore its value.
“For many lenders, when they lend a picture to a significant exhibition and it’s been out of their house for an extensive period of time, that’s when a kernel of an idea is formed when they think about possibly parting with the work,” Barker says, noting that any conversations around the sale of works that have appeared in museum exhibitions usually happen within 24 months of their display. Meanwhile, strict government insurance policies stipulate that works cannot be sold while on loan to a museum and must be returned to the same lender at the end of a show.
The sale comes ahead of another major museum show of Bacon’s work, at the National Portrait Gallery in London in October.
“Judiciously priced” at $30m to $50m, the portrait of Dyer is being offered without a guarantee—a sign, Barker says, of “the faith the vendor is putting in the painting and the process”. Irrespective of the auction market’s 7% drop in 2023, as cited in the latest Art Basel/UBS Art Market report, Barker thinks that “the re-introduction to market of a painting of this type of quality and rarity is a major market moment”. In tougher times, he adds, more discerning buyers “who only look for the very best pictures” rise to the top, though he acknowledges “the air is thinner above a certain level”.
The Sotheby’s picture is the first in a series of ten full-scale works that Bacon painted of Dyer, with whom the artist had a tempestuous relationship. Three other works from the group are in museums, including the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland, while one was destroyed in a fire in 1979. Another in the series sold for £42.2m (around $70m) in 2014.
First publicly shown at Bacon’s 1966 solo exhibition at Galerie Maeght in Paris, Portrait of George Dyer Crouching was acquired by the current owners from Marlborough Gallery in 1970. A year later, it was loaned to Bacon’s retrospective held at the Grand Palais in Paris, which opened just 36 hours after Dyer died from a drug overdose.
Portraits of Dyer are among Bacon’s most sought-after works, with the record for any single panel portrait by the artist, as well as the top three prices for small scale triptychs, all boasting Dyer as their subject.
