To step off Savile Row, walk, say, four paces, and come face-to-face with Rembrandt’s 1659 ‘Self-portrait with Beret’, is a special pleasure. Heavily framed, this late portrait – a dark amber affair in which the ageing artist’s face is rendered from layers of thick impasto – smoulders on this new gallery’s sparse white walls. Flanked by six self-portraits by Francis Bacon, and an Irving Penn photograph of the artist with a copy of the Rembrandt tacked on the studio wall behind him, the thematic thrust of this show becomes obvious. Given the tiny size of this space, however, it’s more the personal nature of the encounter with the works that gives ‘Irrational Marks’ its clout, rather than any far-reaching exposé of the Dutch master’s influence on the British painter.
Bacon’s painterly cannibalism – his consumption of images of works by Velázquez and Van Gogh, alongside images of Hitler and chimpanzees – is a well known phenomenon. His obsession with the work of Rembrandt, however, remains under-explored. Endorsing the relationships that can begin to be drawn from looking at Rembrandt’s portraiture with those of Bacon is a small selection of documents on the British artist at work. A clip from David Sylvester’s interview with the artist is also screened, articulating the crux of Bacon’s attraction to ‘Self-portrait with Beret’ – especially the eyes, and their anti-illustrational rendering. With the inclusion of this corroborative footage, all threads appear tied.
This is a straightforward show that can be lauded for doing something new-ish with Bacon, but ultimately it stands out because there are some remarkable loans, the likes of which you might expect to see in a public museum rather than a private space. But this secondary market (resale) gallery – headed-up by art-world powerhouse Pilar Ordovas, responsible for record-breaking auction sales – evidently has the means.