A major triptych by Francis Bacon is about to see the light after languishing for more than 30 years in the store of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendants (1968) was bought, having been shown in Europe in 1972, by the wife of the last shah of Iran. It became part of the collection of the Tehran museum, but it is thought to have been on display there only once in 30 years.
Then, in 2001, Tate Britain’s director, Stephen Deuchar, holidayed in Iran. He stopped off at the Tehran museum, asked to meet the director, Ali Reza Sami Azar, and was shown the gallery’s reserve collection.
”Even under the fluorescent lighting of the store we could see it was a strong work,” Dr Deuchar said on Thursday. ”An idea of exchanging works emerged — we recently lent them a Bill Woodrow sculpture for a British Council exhibition in the Tehran museum.”
The triptych is on loan to Tate Britain for six months, where it forms the centrepiece of a new Bacon room.
The work did not remain in store merely because of its overtly sexual content, though that may have been a factor. ”Dr Sami Azar did acknowledge the need for caution over one or two female nudes in the collection,” Deuchar said, ”but he would say that it was as difficult finding a proper context for the Bacon’s display — the revolution brought to an end collecting of contemporary art.”
The work is one of a number of vast triptychs that Bacon produced. The left and right panels mirror each other, with a seated figure nude on the left and clothed on the right. It is possible that this represents George Dyer, Bacon’s lover who died alone of drink and drugs on their hotel lavatory in Paris in 1971.
The central panel shows two male figures, with simian facial features, in bed. The bed is identifiably that which Bacon used in Morocco and on which he received many beatings by lovers. – Guardian Unlimited Â