Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film presents an exhibition of works by Francis Bacon. The exhibition will include 11 contact sheets, which were used as important image sources in his production process.

It is well known that Bacon worked from photographs rather than live models. While he hired John Deakin and other established photographers to make some of the photographs, he also frequently hired unknown photographers who were active in New York at the time. Some of the contact sheets show sequential photographs, which evoke Eadweard Muybridge’s works, but they also betray his idiosyncratic perspective on the human figure. In 1974, Bacon explained, “I want to isolate the image much further and take it very much further away from the photograph. I only use photographs as I would use a dictionary in a foreign language.” He wrote directly onto some of the photographs to formulate ideas for his works.

Some of these valued contact sheets were preserved as the “Robertson Collection.” Mac Robertson, who worked as an electrician at Bacon’s studio, inherited and later sold works Bacon was planning to destroy, as well as documents including his contact sheets and diary entries. The contact sheets included in the current exhibition were also a part of his collection.

From March 8 to May 26, “FRANCIS BACON,” the first posthumous retrospective of Bacon’s works in Asia, will be held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.