Dr Katharina Günther discusses the importance and prominence of photographic source materials throughout Francis Bacon’s work.
Portraits and self-portraits formed an inherent part of Bacon’s practice. While it is well-known that Bacon often based them on photographic source material, this process has rarely been systematically analysed. This lecture will explore the role photography played in Bacon’s portrait painting.
Learn how the physical state of material and photography influenced the imagery on his canvas, and what patterns and recurring methods can be detected in Bacon’s working ethos and preparatory practice, along with how they can be interpreted.
Günther will also discuss how photography acted as a tool to help Bacon express individual feelings and attitudes towards a sitter and facilitated Bacon’s challenging and blurring of conventional ideas of representation, portraiture, and identity.
This lecture is part of the programme of events in relation to our current exhibition Francis Bacon: Human Presence.
Dr Katharina Günther studied art history in Cologne and Antwerp and received her PhD from the University of Cologne in 2019. Her thesis was published as Francis Bacon – In the Mirror of Photography. Collecting, Preparatory Practice and Painting (Boston/Berlin 2022) and won several prizes, including a gold medal at the German Photo Book Awards.
Since 2009, Katharina Günther has worked as a researcher for The Estate of Francis Bacon, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation, and the John Deakin Archive in Dublin and London, including at Tate Britain and Hugh Lane Gallery. From 2015, she was the project manager of francis-bacon.com, the official website with a digital catalogue raisonné of The Estate of Francis Bacon.
In 2020 she returned to Germany to head the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association at Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Dr Günther is currently working as an independent researcher and curator. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary photography and painting, especially British 20th century art, the relationship between painting and photography, post-war figurative painting, conflict art and augmented reality in art, which she addresses in international publications, exhibitions and teaching assignments.
£10 (£8 Members / concessions)
