Three color aquatints with etching on one sheet of Guarro paper, 1981. 625x1100 mm; 24 3/4x43 1/2 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 58/99 in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by Polígrafa, Barcelona. Very good, well-inked impressions with strong colors.
Triptych is based on the same-titled, three-part work painted by Bacon (1909-1992) from 1974 to 1977. This mysterious, foreboding work, one of the last in a series of triptychs that Bacon painted following the suicide of his long-time companion, George Dyer, in 1971 (Dyer killed himself in the Paris hotel room where he and Bacon were staying on the eve of the opening of a landmark retrospective of Bacon's work at the Grand Palais), is believed to represent Dyer struggling.
There are two printed versions of these three color aquatints with etching: one in which the three separate plates are printed on a single sheet of paper, like the current work, and the other with the three separate plates each printed on a separate sheet of paper (both versions were issued in an edition of 99, each pencil signed by Bacon and numbered). Sabatier 4.
