# Head II

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{{Short description|Painting by Francis Bacon}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox artwork
 | image_file    = Head II 1949 Francis Bacon.jpg
 | image_upright = 1
 | title         = Head II 
 | artist        = [Francis Bacon](/source/Francis_Bacon_(artist))
 | year          = 1949
 | medium        = Oil on canvas
 | height_metric = 80.5
 | width_metric  = 65
 | museum        = [Ulster Museum](/source/Ulster_Museum)
 | city          = [Belfast](/source/Belfast)
}}

'''''Head II''''' is an oil and [tempera](/source/tempera) on hardboard painting by the Irish-born British figurative artist [Francis Bacon](/source/Francis_Bacon_(artist)), from 1948. It the second in a series of six heads, painted from the winter of 1948 in preparation for a November 1949 exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, London.<ref name="r38">Russell, 38</ref>

==Description==
The figure seems half human, half animal, and has disintegrated to an extent that, like the preceding ''[Head I](/source/Head_I)'' of the series, the entire upper head has disappeared, leaving only mouth and jaw. The figure is set in a shallow pictorial space, and is positioned behind curtains that borrow from [Titian](/source/Titian)'s 1558 ''Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto''. The curtains are fastened at one point by a safety pin. John Russell sees the curtains as enclosing the figure, as if the walls of a prison or execution dock. Remarking on their dreary and drab appearance, he further speculates that they seem "stiffened by fifty years' crassness of a tenth-rate lodging-house; or they could be sliding shutters that have been pulled apart to admit a new victim."<ref name="r35">Russell, 35</ref>

The painting's overall [grisaille](/source/grisaille) appearance gives the impression of x-ray photographs, and K.C. Clark's ''Positioning may have inspired the look in Radiography'', a book Bacon often acknowledged as a key source for his work. The painting contains a small arrow just below the figure's mouth; the first appearance of a motif the artist was to continue using for the rest of his career.<ref name="d44">Dawson, 44</ref>

==See also==
* [List of paintings by Francis Bacon](/source/List_of_paintings_by_Francis_Bacon)

==Notes==
{{reflist|1}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
*Dawson, Barbara; Sylvester, David. ''Francis Bacon in Dublin''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0-500-28254-0}}
*Farr, Dennis; Peppiatt, Michael; Yard, Sally. ''Francis Bacon: A Retrospective''. NY: Harry N Abrams, 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-8109-2925-8}}
*[Peppiatt, Michael](/source/Michael_Peppiatt). ''Anatomy of an Enigma''. London: Westview Press, 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-8133-3520-9}}
*[Russell, John](/source/John_Russell_(art_critic)). ''Francis Bacon (World of Art)''. NY: Norton, 1971. {{ISBN|978-0-500-20169-5}}

{{refend}}

{{Francis Bacon (artist)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Head II}}
Category:1949 paintings
Category:Paintings by Francis Bacon
Category:Heads in the arts
Category:Oil paintings on canvas

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