“That man who paints those dreadful pictures” is set to steal the limelight – yet again

MARGARET Thatcher once famously referred to Francis Bacon as “that man who paints those dreadful pictures”. The former British prime minister sure had her finger on the pulse.

Abstract paintings of screaming popes, crucifixion scenes and grotesquely contorted naked men are not, quite, Middle England’s cup of tea. But, despite the Iron Lady’s disdain, he is one of the most admired – and collected – of all 20th century artists.

And his paintings – which can make even hardened adults flinch – sell for more than the work of any other Irish-born artist by a very wide margin.

Born in Dublin in 1909, Bacon grew up in Co Kildare where his father, a former British army officer turned racehorse trainer, reputedly had his son flogged by stable-hands to make a man of him. Not surprisingly, he bolted abroad at the earliest opportunity and, after stints in Berlin and Paris, settled in London where he spent the rest of his life.

Papa’s “cure” backfired and Bacon was notorious for consorting with toughie Eastenders with whom he indulged his taste for sado-masochism. Although his favourite haunts were the seedier bars and nightclubs of Soho, fame opened gilded doors. He once scandalised London’s beau monde when he booed and hissed Princess Margaret as she sang a Noel Coward song at a private party – causing her to rush, mortified, from the salon. Polite society (and the Daily Mail) was aghast.

Writing in The Observer, in 2008, Oxford University professor and critic Peter Conrad described Bacon as “the most celebrated painter of his time, all the more famous for the diabolical whiff of sulphur exuded by his alcoholic binges, his homosexual promiscuity and his voluptuous taste for pain”.

In 1946, a London art dealer bought one of his paintings for £200. Anyone who bought his early works has reason to be cheerful and may well be reading this article on a yacht moored off Cannes. By 1989, Bacon had become the worlds most expensive living artist. He died, while holidaying in Madrid, in 1992. Bacon’s South Kensington studio – lock, stock and dirty paintbrushes included – was donated by his heir, John Edwards, to the Hugh Lane Gallery and was transported to Dublin in 1998 to be reassembled for permanent display.

Since his death, his reputation – and prices – have soared. In 2008, Sotheby's New York sold his Triptych, 1976for $86.3 million, the highest price paid for any painting created since the second World War. The triptych was sold by France's Moueix family, producers of Château Pétrus wines, and bought by Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea Football Club, Roman Abramovich.

Next Thursday, February 10th, Sotheby's in London is selling another of his triptychs, T hree Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud– a fellow painter widely regarded as Britain's greatest living artist. Sotheby's described it as "a testament to the friendship between these two giants of 20th century art" and has estimated it at £7m-£9m.

It’s the highlight in the sale of a private collection of modern and contemporary European paintings and sculptures.