Francis Bacon was born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 28, 1909, the second of five children to Edward and Winfrey Bacon. The Bacon family lived there until 1914, when Edward took up work in the War Office in London, England. After 1918, the family moved back and forth from London to Dublin. During this period of frequent travel, Francis suffered from asthma and other recurrent ailments and rarely went to school, being taught by private tutors.
             In 1925, Edward, angered by Francis's homosexuality, sent Francis to live with an uncle in Berlin. After three years, he moved to Paris, where he supported himself with commissions for interior decoration. There he decided to become a painter, after viewing the Picasso exhibit at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg. In 1929, Francis Bacon returned to London, setting up a studio in South Kensington. There he held a one-man exhibition of surrealist oil paintings, watercolors, and furniture. The exhibit received little or no attention, but Bacon was determined and started devoting more time painting, and less time on interior decorating and began to live in poverty.
             In 1933, he painted two crucifixions, which he submitted to the International Surrealist Exhibition, but were rejected. Dishearted, he began to paint less and gamble more. In 1941, Bacon destroyed all but ten canvasses to date. He then joined the Civil Defence Corps. In 1945, he painted Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which was exhibited at Lefevre Gallery and received lots of attention. Following the success of the first triptych, he painted Painting 1946, which was exhibited at the same gallery, provoking extreme reactions.
             Then, in 1949, he completed a spectacular series of six Heads, in which the figure of the screaming Pope appeared for the first time. He then, in 1950, began a series of three Pope figures after Velazquez' Pope Innocent X, of which only two were completed. Bacon then took up...