Francis Bacon, Portrait of George Dyer Talking. Oil on canvas, 1966. Image courtesy of Christie’s.
A painting by Francis Bacon that formerly made its home in the collection of Binghamton’s Dr. Israel J. Rosefsky was part of the record-breaking sales of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art at auction this past month. From the New York Times:
“…at least four big-name trophy hunters slugged it out on telephones at Christie’s on Thursday over Francis Bacon’s 1966 “Portrait of George Dyer Talking.” Estimated at £30 million, this powerful depiction of the artist’s lover seated like a Michelangelo nude on a bar stool was included in the Bacon retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1971, an exhibition that opened two days after Dyer committed suicide. The painting eventually sold to an undisclosed American buyer represented by Brett Gorvy, Christie’s international head of postwar and contemporary art, for £42.2 million, or $70 million. The price was an auction record for a single canvas by the artist.”
To read the rest of the article, click here. For more information about the portrait, click here.
Binghamton Art History 