Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francis-bacon-682" aria-label="More by Francis Bacon" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Francis Bacon</a>
Dog
Presented by Eric Hall 1952
abstraction
aggression
animals: mammals
architecture
blur
car
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
coast
countries and continents
dog - non-specific
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
from recognisable sources
garden
garden structures
landscape
Monaco
Monte Carlo, Corniche
palm
places
road
sea
seascapes and coasts
society
townscapes / man-made features
transport: land
vulnerability
<p>Bacon used a variety of strategies to represent what one commentator described as 'the anguish of contemporary life'. Here we see his use of animals to evoke aggression, vulnerability or both. The image of the dog derived from Eadward Muybridge's time-lapse photographs of animals in motion. Bacon smeared the paint to suggest what seems to be demented movement. In contrast the setting, depicted with an economy of means, was based on the sea front in Monte Carlo, where he had lived from 1946 to 1950.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 October 2001 – 1 December 2002
2002-12-01
8 October 2001 – 1 December 2002
2002-12-01
2001-10-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-08
Francis Bacon
Collection based display
11 December 2003 – 14 August 2004
2004-08-14
11 December 2003 – 21 March 2004
2004-03-21
2003-12-11
IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia, Spain)
7 April 2004 – 14 August 2004
2004-08-14
2004-04-07
Musée Maillol (Paris, France)
2003-12-11
Francis Bacon
Loan-out
21 June 2004 – 4 April 2005
2005-04-04
17 May 2004
2004-05-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-06-21
Francis Bacon
Collection based display
1 October 2006 – 10 December 2006
2006-12-10
1 October 2006 – 10 December 2006
2006-12-10
2006-10-01
Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (Norwich, UK)
29 January 2007 – 15 April 2007
2007-04-15
2007-01-29
Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, USA)
5 May 2007 – 30 July 2007
2007-07-30
2007-05-05
Albright Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, USA)
2006-10-01
Francis Bacon: Paintings from the 1950s
Loan-out
29 January 2007 – 28 January 2008
2008-01-28
29 January 2007
2007-01-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-01-29
Francis Bacon
Collection based display
11 September 2008 – 4 January 2009
2009-01-04
11 September 2008 – 4 January 2009
2009-01-04
2008-09-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
3 February 2009 – 19 April 2009
2009-04-19
2009-02-03
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
18 May 2009 – 16 August 2009
2009-08-16
2009-05-18
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2008-09-11
Francis Bacon 2008
Exhibition
3 February 2009 – 16 August 2009
2009-08-16
1 October 2008 – 4 January 2009
2009-01-04
2008-10-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
3 February 2009 – 19 April 2009
2009-04-19
2009-02-03
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
18 May 2009 – 16 August 2009
2009-08-16
2009-05-18
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2009-02-03
Francis Bacon
Loan-out
12 November 2010 – 5 November 2012
2012-11-05
12 November 2010 – 5 November 2012
2012-11-05
2010-11-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-11-12
Gallery 16
Collection based display
7 March 2015 – 23 June 2016
2016-06-23
7 March 2015 – 23 June 2016
2016-06-23
2015-03-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2015-03-07
Tracey Emin and Francis Bacon
Collection based display
2 July 2016 – 8 January 2017
2017-01-08
2 July 2016 – 4 September 2016
2016-09-04
2016-07-02
Grimaldi Forum (Monaco, Monaco)
2016-07-02
Francis Bacon, Monaco et la French Culture
Loan-out
26 July 2016 – 23 February 2020
2020-02-23
25 April 2017 – 17 September 2017
2017-09-17
2017-04-25
Museo Picasso Málaga (Malaga, Spain)
16 October 2017 – 4 February 2018
2018-02-04
2017-10-16
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus, Denmark)
25 September 2019 – 23 February 2020
2020-02-23
2019-09-25
Chiostro del Bramante (Rome, Italy)
http://www.chiostrodelbramante.it/
2016-07-26
School of London
Tate partnerships & programmes
28 February 2018 – 13 January 2019
2019-01-13
28 February 2018 – 27 August 2018
2018-08-27
2018-02-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
28 September 2018 – 13 January 2019
2019-01-13
2018-09-28
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, Hungary)
2018-02-28
All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life
Exhibition
9 October 2018 – 13 January 2019
2019-01-13
9 October 2018 – 13 January 2019
2019-01-13
2018-10-09
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, Hungary)
2018-10-09
All Too Human
Loan-out
29 January 2022 – 17 April 2022
2022-04-17
1 January 2022 – 30 April 2022
2022-04-30
2022-01-01
Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK)
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk
2022-01-29
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast
Loan-out
1 October 2022 – 22 January 2023
2023-01-22
1 October 2022 – 22 January 2023
2023-01-22
2022-10-01
Firstsite (Colchester, UK)
http://www.firstsite.uk.net/
2022-10-01
Denis Wirth-Miller "Retrospective"
Loan-out
19 December 2022
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-12-19
Gallery 38
Collection based display
1 January 2026 – 31 May 2026
2026-05-31
1 January 2026 – 31 May 2026
2026-05-31
2026-01-01
Kunstmuseum Den Haag (The Hague, Netherlands)
2026-01-01
School of London - The Hague
Loan-out
Dog
support: 1981 × 1372 mm
frame: 2185 × 1580 × 118 mm
Presented by Eric Hall 1952
<p>Bacon used a variety of strategies  to represent what one commentator described as 'the anguish of contemporary life'. Here we see his  use of animals to evoke aggression, vulnerability or both. The image  of the dog derived from Eadward Muybridge's time-lapse <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photographs</span></a>  of animals in motion. Bacon smeared  the paint to suggest what seems to be demented movement. In contrast the setting, depicted with an economy of means, was based on the sea front in Monte Carlo, where he had lived from 1946 to 1950.</p>
Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Francis Bacon </b><span>1909-1992</span>
<br/>
<br/><b>Study of a Dog</b><span>
1952</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>N06131</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Oil, charcoal and sand on canvas 1981 x 1372 mm (78 x 54 in)</span>
<br/><span>Monogrammed in black oil paint ‘⊕’ bottom right</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Presented by Eric Hall, 1952</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Provenance:</span>
<br/><span>Purchased from the artist through the Hanover Gallery, London by Eric Hall, 1952</span></p>
<div class="footnote_text"></div>
<p><span>Exhibited:</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, Hanover Gallery, London, Dec. 1952-Jan. 1953 (no catalaogue)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, Department of Fine Art, Nottingham University, Feb.-Mar. 1961 (22)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, Tate Gallery, London, May-June 1962 (18, reproduced), Kunsthalle, Mannheim, July-Aug. (14, reproduced), Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin, Sept.-Oct. (15, reproduced), Kunsthaus, Zurich, Oct.-Nov. (15), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Jan.-Feb. 1963 (13)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum, New York, Oct. 1963-Jan. 1964, Art Institute of Chicago, Jan.-Feb. 1964 (16, reproduced p.41)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon: Gemälde 1945-1964</i><span>, Kunstverein, Hamburg, Jan.-Feb. 1965 (9)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon: Malningar 1945-1964</i><span>, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Feb.-Apr. 1965 (9, reproduced)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, Apr.-May 1965 (9)</span>
<br/><i>Henry Moore to Gilbert and George: Modern British Art from the Tate Gallery</i><span>, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Sept.-Nov. 1973, as part of </span><i>Europalia 73 Great Britain</i><span> (74, reproduced p.90)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon: Paintings 1945-1982</i><span>, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, June-Aug. 1983, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Sept.-Oct., Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, Nagoya, Nov. (6, reproduced in colour p.35)</span>
<br/><i>Creation: Modern Art and Nature</i><span>, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Aug.-Oct. 1984 (69, reproduced)</span>
<br/><i>Forty Years of Modern Art 1945-1985</i><span>, Tate Gallery, London, Feb.-April 1986 (no number)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon: Paintings Since 1944</i><span>, Tate Gallery Liverpool, Feb. 1990-Jan. 1991 (no number, reproduced in colour p.6)</span>
<br/><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, June-Oct. 1996, Haus der Kunst, Munich Nov. 1996-Jan. 1997 (17, reproduced in colour p.107)</span>
<br/><i>Des Modernes aux Avant-Gardes</i><span>, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, June-Oct. 1997 (no number, reproduced in colour [p.9])</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Literature:</span>
<br/><span>Howard Griffin, ‘Francis Bacon: Case-History Painting’, </span><i>Studio</i><span>, vol.161, no.817, May 1961, p.164</span>
<br/><span>Luigi Carluccio, ‘Bacon: il potere e la gloria’ in </span><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin 1962, p.23</span>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné and Documentation</i><span>, London 1964, p.58, reproduced [p.175], no.39 (as ‘</span><i>Dog</i><span>’)</span>
<br/><span>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, </span><i>Tate Gallery: The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures</i><span>, I, London 1964, p.22</span>
<br/><span>David W. Boxer, ‘The Early Work of Francis Bacon’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 1975, pp.162-4, reproduced fig.126</span>
<br/><span>Hugh M. Davies, </span><i>Francis Bacon: The Early and Middle Years, 1928-1958</i><span> (Ph.D thesis, Princeton University, 1975), New York and London 1978, pp.145-6, reproduced pl.109 (as ‘</span><i>Dog</i><span>’)</span>
<br/><span>John W. Nixon, ‘Francis Bacon: Paintings 1959-1979; Opposites and Structural Rationalism’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Ulster, Belfast 1986, p.39, 560-1 (no.39 as ‘Dog’)</span>
<br/><span>Jeremy Lewison, ‘Venice: Francis Bacon’, </span><i>Burlington</i><span>, vol.135, no.1088, Nov. 1993, p.783</span>
<br/><span>Ziva Amishai-Maissels, </span><i>Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts</i><span>, Oxford, New York, Seoul and Tokyo 1993, pp.216,450</span>
<br/><span>Andrew Sinclair, </span><i>Francis Bacon: His Life and Violent Times</i><span>, London 1993, p.129</span>
<br/><span>Michael Peppiatt, </span><i>Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma</i><span>, London 1996, p.134</span>
<br/><span>Hervé Vanel, ‘L’imagination technique’ in </span><i>Francis Bacon</i><span>, exhibition catalogue, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1996, p.67</span>
<br/><span>Sam Hunter, ‘Francis Bacon’s Endgame: Humanism Revisited’, </span><i>Francis Bacon: Important Paintings from the Estate</i><span>, exhibition catalogue Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, 1998, p.34, reproduced p.34 (colour; mistakenly as ‘</span><i>Dog</i><span>
1952 Museum of Modern Art, New York’) </span>
<br/><span>Matthew Gale in </span><i>Francis Bacon: Working on Paper</i><span>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.21, reproduced</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Reproduced:</span>
<br/><span>Denys Sutton, ‘Art News from London’, </span><i>Art News</i><span>, vol.51, no.9, Jan. 1953, p.52 (as ‘</span><i>Dog</i><span>’)</span>
<br/><i>Art Digest</i><span>, vol.27, 15 Sept. 1953, p.11</span>
<br/><span>G. Sandilands, ‘Contemporary British Artists III: Man and his Surroundings’, </span><i>The Artist</i><span>, vol.57, no.6, Aug. 1959, p.124</span>
<br/><i>Emporium</i><span>, vol.86, Oct. 1962, p.174</span>
<br/><span>Wieland Schmied, </span><i>Francis Bacon: Vier Studien zu einem Porträt</i><span>, Berlin 1985, p.95, pl.138 (as ‘</span><i>Hund</i><span>’)</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>At the beginning of the 1950s Bacon made two trips through southern Africa to visit his mother in South Africa. The first was rather meandering; he left in November 1950 and in the following February wrote to his dealer from Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia requesting £50 for a return journey which would take him from Beira to Port Sudan, Thebes and Alexandria.</span><a href="#fn1" name="fnB1">[1]</a><span>
According to Ronald Alley, </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> and </span><i><a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>Landscape</span></a></i><span>, 1952 (private collection)</span><a href="#fn2" name="fnB2">[2]</a><span>
were made ‘within a few days’ of each other ‘just before he set out on his second visit’ to South Africa in the spring of 1952;</span><a href="#fn3" name="fnB3">[3]</a><span>
this dating was confirmed by David Sylvester’s recollection.</span><a href="#fn4" name="fnB4">[4]</a><span>
The conjunction of these two works is supported by the appearance on both of a monogram (‘FB’ made into a circle) which is unusual for an artist who rarely signed his work. Although the warmth and openness of </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> may be related to the experience of Africa evident in </span><i>Landscape</i><span>, Alley has noted that ‘the formal flower-bed and the coast road with palm trees were derived from coloured picture-postcards of Monte Carlo’.</span><a href="#fn5" name="fnB5">[5]</a><span>
A similar detail of a coast road with cars had been used in the background of </span><i>Fragment of a Crucifixion</i><span>, 1950 (Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven).</span><a href="#fn6" name="fnB6">[6]</a></p>
<p>
<br/><span>The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> is very thinly painted, with the immediate technique allowing for few adjustments. Although it bears a heavy coat of size (which has darkened and hardened),</span><a href="#fn7" name="fnB7">[7]</a><span>
perhaps ninety percent of the canvas remains unpainted, as it had become Bacon’s practice around 1947-8 to work on the reverse side of commercially prepared canvas.</span><a href="#fn8" name="fnB8">[8]</a><span>
This provided a stiff support while being more receptive to the use of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/pastel" title="Glossary definition for 'Pastel'"><span>pastel</span></a> than the primed surface; he told Andrew Durham that this ‘suited the South of France’</span><a href="#fn9" name="fnB9">[9]</a><span>
where he was then working, presumably meaning that the warmer tonality of the canvas suited such subjects. Some lines along the road appear to have been drawn in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/charcoal" title="Glossary definition for 'Charcoal'"><span>charcoal</span></a>, although black oil paint was used to mark the flowerbed and the prominent horizon. The handling and tonality of the two areas of red reinforce the sense of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/perspective" title="Glossary definition for 'Perspective'"><span>perspective</span></a> in the octagonal framing device. The paint in the lower of these areas and in the green of the flowerbed was given bulk by the introduction of sand, apparently sprinkled onto the wet surface ‘along with dry pigment almost as another <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> colour’.</span><a href="#fn10" name="fnB10">[10]</a><span>
In these same areas there is evidence of Bacon’s compositional procedure as the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/form" title="Glossary definition for 'Form'"><span>form</span></a> of the dog was anticipated and left empty when both the red border and the green circle were painted.</span></p>
<p>
<br/><span>The most complex handling of paint was reserved for the dog. This reinforced its status as the sole subject of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>, which marked a departure from many preceding paintings, including the contemporary </span><i>Landscape</i><span>
in which the whole surface was more evenly worked. Black and silvery blue lent form to the dog’s head which seems to have generated the arch of the body in a single sweep from the orange flash of the tongue. The paint is thickest on the back, where the white is greenish and overlaid with a reddish ochre layer of sand used for both <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/impasto" title="Glossary definition for 'Impasto'"><span>texture</span></a> and colour. The energetic form of the body is bound-in with a superimposed dotted line which is matched by one at the shoulders. The underneath and legs are more sketchily painted with the canvas left bare in places. An earlier position for one of the legs is visible between the forelegs, but it has been disguised in the hatching and blurring which surrounds the body.</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>It has long been recognised that the image of the dog was derived from one of Bacon’s favourite photographic sources, Eadward Muybridge’s </span><i>Animal Locomotion</i><span> (Philadelphia 1887),</span><a href="#fn11" name="fnB11">[11]</a><span>
which he sought out in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The photographer had catalogued the movements of humans and animals by shooting sequences of still images which revealed aspects to motion unrecognised by the eye. Bacon used several of these as points of departure for his painting, and in this particular case the source lay in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photographs</span></a> of a mastiff; as David Boxer has specified, it was the isolated ‘ninth frame of a twelve-frame sequence of a dog striding - an analysis of a single stride in 10 phases’.</span><a href="#fn12" name="fnB12">[12]</a><span>
The same frame and composition was used for a very similar painting, </span><i>Dog</i><span>, 1952 (Museum of Modern Art, New York)</span><a href="#fn13" name="fnB13">[13]</a><span>
made immediately on Bacon’s return from his second South African trip in 1952.</span><a href="#fn14" name="fnB14">[14]</a><span>
Two later works, which were darker in tonality and mood, also use the Muybridge pose: </span><i>Man with Dog</i><span>, 1953 (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo)</span><a href="#fn15" name="fnB15">[15]</a><span>
and a second work called </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span>, 1954 (private collection).</span><a href="#fn16" name="fnB16">[16]</a></p>
<p>
<br/><span>The transformation of this photographic image of movement into paint is sometimes compared to Giacomo Balla’s <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/futurism" title="Glossary definition for 'Futurism'"><span>Futurist</span></a> painting </span><i>Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash</i><span>, 1912 (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo),</span><a href="#fn17" name="fnB17">[17]</a><span>
which was shown at the Tate Gallery in 1952.</span><a href="#fn18" name="fnB18">[18]</a><span>
However, the purpose and effect has been read differently. In drawing attention to the ambiguity of </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span>, Boxer observed that Bacon had ‘chosen the frame which most seems to deny the dog’s movement’ and had emphasised this by lowering one of the hind legs.</span><a href="#fn19" name="fnB19">[19]</a><span>
However, Davies proposed the opposite, suggesting that through the series ‘Bacon has developed and exaggerated the blurred prototype in order to capture a sense of fleeting motion’.</span><a href="#fn20" name="fnB20">[20]</a><span>
As both ambiguity and blurring evidently have a role to play, it seems likely that the artist sought out the peculiar distortions of frozen movement - what he later called Muybridge’s ‘raw statements of movement’</span><a href="#fn21" name="fnB21">[21]</a><span>
-  in both his source and his work.</span></p>
<p>
<br/><span>John Russell has written of Bacon’s ‘readiness to accept a deformed or implausible image as true’,</span><a href="#fn22" name="fnB22">[22]</a><span>
and this was substantiated by the artist’s acknowledged reliance on photography. In 1955 he described his paintings as looking ‘as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence and memory trace of past events’.</span><a href="#fn23" name="fnB23">[23]</a><span>
Significantly he added: ‘this sort of elliptical form is dependent on the execution of detail and how shapes are remade or put slightly out of focus to bring in their memory traces.’</span><a href="#fn24" name="fnB24">[24]</a><span>
Experience or a record of a reality witnessed at a remove could thus be implicit in the focal distortions derived from photography. Responding to David Sylvester’s questions in 1966, Bacon identified photography as a trigger: ‘it’s the slight remove from fact, which returns me onto the fact more violently. Through the photographic image I find myself beginning to wander into the image and unlock what I think of as its reality more than I can by looking at it.’</span><a href="#fn25" name="fnB25">[25]</a><span>
As part of this process, the ‘crumpling’ of source images in the studio which adds ‘other implications’</span><a href="#fn26" name="fnB26">[26]</a><span>
may be interpreted, as Wieland Schmied has observed,</span><a href="#fn27" name="fnB27">[27]</a><span>
as an acceptance of the transience of both the work and its subject.</span></p>
<p>
<br/><span>Bacon’s use of Muybridge as a source became frequent in the early 1950s, and the particular choice of subject for </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> seemed to bridge two phases at a transitional moment in his work. The immediately preceding paintings were concerned with the isolation of the individual, often enclosed in an interior, such as found in </span><i>Pope II</i><span> (Kunsthalle, Mannheim).</span><a href="#fn28" name="fnB28">[28]</a><span>
The scream depicted in these images, and thereafter identified with Bacon’s work as a whole, suggested the existential anxiety which contemporary supporters identified as ‘putting on to canvas the anguish of contemporary life’.</span><a href="#fn29" name="fnB29">[29]</a><span>
In </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> this existential isolation is seemingly invested in the dog which displaces the human presence. Many ensuing paintings were concerned with wild animals seen on the painter’s trips to Africa or in the photographs in Marius Maxwell’s </span><i>Stalking Big Game with a Camera in Equatorial Africa</i><span> (London, 1925). Some, such as </span><i>Study of a Baboon</i><span>, 1953 (Museum of Modern Art, New York),</span><a href="#fn30" name="fnB30">[30]</a><span>
extend the parallel between man and animal which may be associated with Bacon’s interest in the ideas of the French writer Georges Bataille.</span><a href="#fn31" name="fnB31">[31]</a><span>
This parallelism was already implicit in the crouching </span><i>Study for a Nude</i><span>, 1951 (private collection)</span><a href="#fn32" name="fnB32">[32]</a><span>
where the body adopts an arched form close to that in </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> and where ‘man and monkey are fused’ and recall ‘a primitive, ancestral memory of man’s animal origins’.</span><a href="#fn33" name="fnB33">[33]</a><span>
The transfer of the nude to outdoor settings, in works such as </span><i>Study of a Figure in a Landscape</i><span>, 1952 (Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.),</span><a href="#fn34" name="fnB34">[34]</a><span>
makes this atavism more explicit. The disorientating details of </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> also reflect these concerns as the feral dog, with lolling tongue and arched back, appears like an eruption of energy in the formal setting of the flowerbed. It is not entirely irrelevant that Bacon was allergic to dogs, and is said to have ensured his exemption from the war service by hiring one from Harrods prior to his medical examination.</span><a href="#fn35" name="fnB35">[35]</a></p>
<p>
<br/><span>In the later paintings, from 1953 and 1954, the same dog was placed in an urban setting which heightened the sense of displacement, but the red framing device used in </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> has other associations. Its reuse in related paintings is a measure of its success as a compositional device, but may also suggest the control of nature in the formal gardens of Monte Carlo that were its source. As late as 1959, Bacon made a manuscript note which shows his return to this motif envisaging: ‘Statue with dogs or birds around base | Tate picture of Monte Carlo as basis’.</span><a href="#fn36" name="fnB36">[36]</a><span>
The scheme with the gardens had already been traced out in </span><i>Landscape, South of France</i><span>, 1952 (private collection),</span><a href="#fn37" name="fnB37">[37]</a><span>
and used in its red form in </span><i>Dog</i><span>, 1952 and in the following year in </span><i>Sphinx I</i><span> (private collection) and</span><i> Sphinx II</i><span> (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven).</span><a href="#fn38" name="fnB38">[38]</a><span>
In these last three paintings the contained space has been criss-crossed by a perspectival grid which, according to Alley, was ‘partly suggested by the gigantic stadium prepared for the National Socialist party’s conventions at Nuremberg’.</span><a href="#fn39" name="fnB39">[39]</a><span>
This identification, which must have been offered by the artist himself, lends a further political gloss to the enigma of the sphinx which is not readily interpretable even as it extends Bacon’s known interest in Nazi imagery first explored in the 1930s.</span><a href="#fn40" name="fnB40">[40]</a>
<br/>
<br/><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> was made at a moment of technical transition in Bacon’s work. For the preceding six years he had used a dense overlaying of paint across the whole surface. This was also the period in which his exacting standards caused him to destroy a considerable percentage of his output. However, with his first exhibition at the Hanover Gallery in late 1949, Bacon’s association with the dealer Erica Brausen and her gallery ensured a more steady output required by the roughly annual exhibitions. The sparser working of canvases such as </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> reflects these commercial demands. Bacon’s frequent changes of address reflected his precarious lifestyle following his break in 1951 Eric Hall, his supporter and lover. Hall’s purchase of </span><i>Study of a Dog</i><span> in late 1952 appeared to be a parting gesture, and he immediately offered it to the Tate, commenting: ‘I hope your trustees will take advantage of having one of the best pictures Bacon has painted and I have known his work for 20 years.’</span><a href="#fn41" name="fnB41">[41]</a><span>
The approach was first made through a third party in November while the painting was still at the Hanover Gallery,</span><a href="#fn42" name="fnB42">[42]</a><span>
and Hall understandably felt ‘a bit peavish’</span><a href="#fn43" name="fnB43">[43]</a><span>
that his offer went unacknowledged for a month. The delay was due to inefficiency and pressure of work and caused a ‘minor fracas’.</span><a href="#fn44" name="fnB44">[44]</a><span>
Nevertheless, a legend of official reluctance - cited by Bacon himself and his biographer Andrew Sinclair</span><a href="#fn45" name="fnB45">[45]</a><span>
- came to be associated with this gift and Hall’s other donation of </span><i>Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion</i><span> (Tate Gallery <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-three-studies-for-figures-at-the-base-of-a-crucifixion-n06171" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06171</span></a>) in the following year.</span></p>
<p>
<br/><span>Matthew Gale</span>
<br/><span>February 1999</span>
<br/></p>
<hr/><div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB1" name="fn1">[1]</a></span>
Bacon, letter to Erica Brausen (Hanover Gallery), 22 Feb. 1951, Tate Gallery Archive 863
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB2" name="fn2">[2]</a></span>
Reproduced, Ronald Alley, <i>Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné and Documentation</i>, London 1964, p.59, no.40 (colour)
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB3" name="fn3">[3]</a></span>
Ibid., p.60
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB4" name="fn4">[4]</a></span>
Ibid., Appendix C, p.270 
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB5" name="fn5">[5]</a></span>
Ibid., p.58
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB6" name="fn6">[6]</a></span>
Reproduced ibid., p.49, no.28 (colour)</div>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB7" name="fn7">[7]</a></span>
Tate Gallery conservation files
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB8" name="fn8">[8]</a></span>
Andrew Durham, ‘Note on Technique’, in Dawn Ades and Andrew Forge, <i>Francis Bacon,</i> exhibition catalogue, Tate<span> </span>Gallery, London 1985, p.231
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB9" name="fn9">[9]</a></span>
Ibid.
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB10" name="fn10">[10]</a></span>
Tate Gallery conservation files</div>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB11" name="fn11">[11]</a></span>
Alley 1964, p.58
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB12" name="fn12">[12]</a></span>
David W. Boxer, ‘The Early Work of Francis Bacon’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 1975, p.163
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB13" name="fn13">[13]</a></span>
Reproduced Alley 1964, [p.177], no.45
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB14" name="fn14">[14]</a></span>
Ibid., p.62
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB15" name="fn15">[15]</a></span>
Reproduced ibid., [p.183], no.58
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB16" name="fn16">[16]</a></span>
Reproduced ibid., [p.194], no.89</div>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB17" name="fn17">[17]</a></span>
Reproduced Giovanni Lista, <i>Balla</i>, Modena 1985, p.176, no.241 (colour)
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB18" name="fn18">[18]</a></span>
Hugh M. Davies, <i>Francis Bacon: The Early and Middle Years, 1928-1958</i> (Ph.D thesis, Princeton University, 1975), New York and London 1978, p.147
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB19" name="fn19">[19]</a></span>
Boxer 1975, p.163
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB20" name="fn20">[20]</a></span>
Davies 1978, pp.144-5
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB21" name="fn21">[21]</a></span>
Gavin Millar, interview with Francis Bacon, BBC 1971, quoted in Davies 1978, p.126</div>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB22" name="fn22">[22]</a></span>
John Russell, <i>Francis Bacon</i>, London, Paris and Berlin, 1971, 2nd ed. London and New York, 1979, 3rd ed. 1993, p.64
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB23" name="fn23">[23]</a></span>
Statement, <i>The New Decade</i>, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, New York 1955, p.63
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB24" name="fn24">[24]</a></span>
Ibid.
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB25" name="fn25">[25]</a></span>
David Sylvester, <i>Interviews with Francis Bacon</i>, London 1975, revised as <i>The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon</i>, 1980, 3rd ed. 1990, 4th ed. as <i>Interviews with Francis Bacon</i>, 1993, p.30
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB26" name="fn26">[26]</a></span>
Ibid., p.38
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB27" name="fn27">[27]</a></span>
Wieland Schmied, <i>Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict</i>, Munich and New York, 1996, p.62</div>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB28" name="fn28">[28]</a></span>
Reproduced Alley 1964, p.55, no.35 (colour)
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB29" name="fn29">[29]</a></span>
David Sylvester, ‘Francis Bacon’, <i>Britain Today</i>, no.214, Feb. 1954, p.23
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB30" name="fn30">[30]</a></span>
Reproduced Alley 1964, p.77, no.69 (colour)
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB31" name="fn31">[31]</a></span>
Dawn Ades, ‘Web of Images’ in Ades and Forge 1985, p.14
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB32" name="fn32">[32]</a></span>
Reproduced <i>Francis Bacon</i>, exhibition catalogue, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1996, p.105, no.15 (colour)
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB33" name="fn33">[33]</a></span>
Jill Lloyd and Michael Peppiatt, ‘Catalogue’, in Rudy Chiappini (ed.), <i>Francis Bacon</i>, exhibition catalogue, Museo d’Arte Moderna, Lugano 1993, p.139
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB34" name="fn34">[34]</a></span>
Reproduced <i>Francis Bacon</i>, exhibition catalogue, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1996, p.110, no.18 (in colour)
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB35" name="fn35">[35]</a></span>
Daniel Farson, <i>The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon</i>, London 1993, p.38
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB36" name="fn36">[36]</a></span>
Bacon note, [17 Dec. 1958], back flyleaf in <i>Introducing Monkeys</i>, London [<i>c</i>.1957], Tate Gallery Archive 9810; see Matthew Gale in <i>Francis Bacon: Working on Paper</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.21</div>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB37" name="fn37">[37]</a></span>
Reproduced Alley 1964, [p.179], no.51
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB38" name="fn38">[38]</a></span>
Reproduced ibid., [p.186], nos.67, 68
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB39" name="fn39">[39]</a></span>
Alley 1964, p.63</div>
<p><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB40" name="fn40">[40]</a></span>
See Ziva Amishai-Maissels, <i>Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts</i>, Oxford, New York, Seoul and Tokyo 1993, p.216</p>
<div class="endnote_text"><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB41" name="fn41">[41]</a></span>
Eric Hall, letter to John Rothenstein, 7 Dec. 1952, Tate Gallery records
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB42" name="fn42">[42]</a></span>
Alan Barlow, letter to John Rothenstein, 11 Nov. 1952, Tate Gallery records
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB43" name="fn43">[43]</a></span>
Hall, letter to Rothenstein, 7 Dec. 1952
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB44" name="fn44">[44]</a></span>
Michael Peppiatt, <i>Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma</i>, London 1996, p.89, Boxer 1975, p.134
<br/><span class="endnote_reference"><a href="#fnB45" name="fn45">[45]</a></span>
Michel Archimbaud, <i>Francis Bacon: In conversation with Michel Archimbaud</i>, Paris 1992 and London 1993, p.25; Andrew Sinclair, <i>Francis Bacon: His Life and Violent Times</i>, London 1993, p.94</div>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-21T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction aggression animals: mammals architecture blur car cities, towns, villages (non-UK) coast countries and continents dog - non-specific emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities from recognisable sources garden garden structures landscape Monaco Monte Carlo, Corniche palm places road sea seascapes and coasts society townscapes / man-made features transport: land vulnerability