Three Studies of Lucian Freud

Bacon and Freud were friends but artistic rivals. Introduced in 1945 by artist Graham Sutherland, they swiftly became close friends who met frequently. The two artists painted each other several times, starting in 1951, when Freud first sat for Bacon. Bacon and Freud's friendship ended after an argument in the mid-1970s. ==Description==

All three panels, in Bacon's typical abstract, distorted, isolated style, show Freud sitting on a cane-bottomed wooden chair within a cage, on a curved mottled-brown surface with a solid orange background. Behind each figure is a headboard of a bed, originating in a set of photographs of Freud by John Deakin which Bacon used as a reference. The central panel portrays the figure face on, in a pose similar to that Bacon used for George Dyer, his lover. Brett Gorvy of Christie's considers the work to represent "a marriage of the incredibly important people in Bacon's life." Francis Outred of Christie's describes the 1969 triptych as "a true masterpiece" and "an undeniable icon of 20th Century art" which "marks Bacon and Freud's relationship, paying tribute to the creative and emotional kinship between the two artists." Art historian Ben Street describes the work as "not an A-grade Bacon." It was among Bacon's favourites of his works. ==History==

The triptych was painted in 1969 at the Royal College of Art in London, where Bacon had a large enough studio to work on three adjacent canvases simultaneously. The three panels of the triptych were sold separately in the mid-1970s. The reassembled triptych was exhibited in the US, at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1999, but the entire work was not exhibited in the UK until October 2013. at Christie's New York auction house, nominally becoming the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction. The 2013 sale also represents the highest price paid for a work by a British or Irish artist, beating Bacon's Triptych 1976, which fetched $86.3 million in May 2008. In September 2025, Wynn's family announced that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where Wynn was board co-chair from 2015 until her death, would receive the painting. It would be the first Bacon work to enter LACMA’s collection. ==See also==