Francis Bacon’s 1969 triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, is more than a milestone in art history; it is a study of profound psychological and artistic intimacy. Executed with raw, visceral intensity, the work captures the complex friendship and rivalry between two towering figures of 20th-century British painting.

Bacon’s genius lies in translating deep emotional states into contorted, almost grotesque forms. Lucian Freud, Bacon’s close friend and occasional rival, appears not from life sittings but via photographs by their mutual friend John Deakin. Freud’s presence is compressed within stark, geometric “cages,” emphasizing isolation and psychological tension. The vivid, flat “sunshine yellow” background heightens the formal abstraction, removing any conventional spatial context.


The triptych format itself is a deliberate artistic strategy. Bacon treated the panels as a cinematic sequence, allowing the subject to be experienced in a fragmented, non-linear narrative. The temporary separation of the panels in the mid-1970s disturbed the artist, underscoring the indivisible integrity of the work.

Provenance reinforces the triptych’s exceptional status. Reunited in the late 1980s and exhibited at the Yale Center for British Art in 1999, it later achieved a record-breaking $142.4 million sale at Christie’s New York in 2013, then the highest price for a work of art at auction. Its recent donation to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) by the estate of Elaine Wynn transforms it from a private treasure to a public cornerstone of modern art, ensuring enduring scholarly and institutional engagement.