Francis Bacon was one of Britain’s greatest painters, deliberately creating pieces to shock and disgust people. His images often included blood and meat, or at least colours which would remind us of them, as well as bruises and violence.

Living somewhere between decadence and the gutter, Bacon was well-known for having a brutal, less than happy lifestyle; drinking to excess, partaking in violent activities and losing his partner to suicide. Bacon made use of Dyer’s death in his art because this stupendous painter’s only ethos was his belief in painting itself… In his later paintings, Bacon shows people enacting brutalities on one another in a terror that never ends. – The Guardian.

Not being in the same state of mind that Bacon was (and I hope I never will be), I find his pieces very emotional and filled with sadness, sometimes with a hint of euphoria. His paintings take my breath away. It seems that each image is so personal that the viewer doesn’t need to be able to relate to the circumstances. He let us in to his mind and soul far more than any other painter has.

Francis Bacon: final painting found in ‘very private’ collection. This piece instantly became my favourite Bacon painting when it was revealed recently. I had the same feeling looking at this as I had when I listened to David Bowie’s Black Star after he had died. It’s a strange mixture of acceptance, fear and relief.

In contrast to the bleakness of his art, this starry-eyed chronicle shows the painter could be genial, generous and waspishly funny... a brilliant talker whose wit and bons mots still crackle through the language. – a review of Michael Peppiatt’s book Francis Bacon in Your Blood.