Anne James analyses contrasts in classic portraits by Bacon and Freud

In the mid-20th century, a group of pioneering painters began pursuing new directions in figurative art, investing representations of the human body with unprecedented expressiveness and depth. Among these painters who sought more accurately to capture the essence of human existence were the School of London artists, who included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, David Hockney and Leon Kossoff. They were Soho-based but their influence and tradition quickly spread to a wider, larger circle across post-war Britain and beyond.

The expressionist portraiture that they developed was intended to capture the essence of each sitter rather than providing a representational view. The way each artist interpreted his subject matter remained distinctive and individual. This exhibition on the School of London focuses on two members of the group: Bacon and Freud.

Like all the School of London artists, both men had been profoundly affected by the Second World War. Both were also influenced by the acceptance of the role of the psyche and its explanation and analysis, as pioneered pre-war by Freud’s grandfather Sigmund.

The exhibition has been exquisitely curated by Aidan Meller and his team. Research for the show took Meller to South Africa, the US and Australia. Unlike many galleries, this one buys the work it shows. And the provenance of each piece is carefully authenticated.

Most of the pieces are lithographs. It does, however, include a diminutive original drawing by Freud. This is of an optimistic male face whose features are accentuated by a seemingly wind-swept black beard streaming in the opposite direction to the subject’s tamer mullet on the top of his head.

There is the leaflet that Bacon produced for the Marlborough Gallery’s 1972 show of his work. The offset lithograph copy is charmingly inscribed “To Lorenzo, with very best wishes, Francis Bacon”. Who Lorenzo was has been lost in the mists of time. But not lost is that this classic Bacon is a portrait of Freud, his legs and feet protruding from the safety of the box in which he is sitting, all set against the emptiness of a classic Bacon background.

Another signed work on show is an androgynous limited edition lithograph of a supercilious face, which carries overtones of both circus showmanship and of despair. So does a poster made for Bacon’s show at Paris’s Grand Palais in 1971/72. He was the first non-French national to be shown there. In it he deconstructs a bullring to its essentials.

There is a signed limited edition lithograph of his famous screaming pope, which he based on the Velazquez portrait of Pope Innocent X: Bacon’s version juxtaposes a publicly-minded outwardly facing Papa with strong references to the inner machinations of mind and body.

By contrast, Freud uses distortion of the perfect representation in portraiture to explore the vulnerabilities and indiv-iduality of each of his sitters. He picks up differences in the eyes in his portraits, as in that of an older lady sitting at a table, four of her fingers holding tight on to the table as if she were holding on to the vestiges of reality, while both eyes and her dizzy hat speak of dislocation and insecurity.

A similar dislocation is captured in the eyes of the young man illustrated top left, each pupil reflecting a different reality with a mouth that speaks of a delayed reaction in the face of the incomprehensible.

The School of London
Aidan Meller Gallery, Oxford
Until November 3