Francis Bacon was born in Dublin, Ireland (a few doors down from the house where Oscar Wilde was born 50 years earlier.) He was on his own throughout most of his childhood. He ran away from boarding school, suffered from bad asthma, and is quoted as saying, " I can't say I had a happy home life."

In 1925, he left for London, then made his way to Germany and Paris where he frequented the museums full of work done by the great artists of the 19th and 20th century. He returned to London in 1929 and set up a studio and inspired by Picasso, Van Gogh, the German Expressionists and various contemporary artists, furniture designers and architects, began to paint.

Francis Bacon continued to paint regularly, taking time out only to gamble, drink and enjoy other nocturnal pleasures. He was fascinated by the human form and rarely deviated from the subject. His bold paintings of misshapen twisted forms slowly gained international success and though he disdained the recognition he received, he was delighted to be earning the money which was essential to his gambling, drinking and painting. He left a legacy as perhaps one of the last great painters of the human form, trying to make order out of chaos and capturing emotions and harsh realities that are imbedded in the psyche and human flesh.