{
"data": {
"id": 151011,
"accession_number": "1982.56",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Head, 1951. Francis Bacon (British, 1909\u20131992). Oil on canvas; framed: 86 x 77 x 6 cm (33 7/8 x 30 5/16 x 2 3/8 in.); unframed: 62.9 x 53.3 cm (24 3/4 x 21 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1982.56. \u00a9 Estate of Francis Bacon / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Head",
"creation_date": "1951",
"creation_date_earliest": 1951,
"creation_date_latest": 1951,
"artists_tags": [
"LGBTQ+ (after 1900)",
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England, 20th century"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 86 x 77 x 6 cm (33 7/8 x 30 5/16 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 62.9 x 53.3 cm (24 3/4 x 21 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.86,
"height_inch": 33,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.77,
"width_inch": 30,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"depth": 0.06,
"depth_inch": 2,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.375
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.629,
"height_inch": 24,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.533,
"width_inch": 21,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of Francis Bacon / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London",
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 309644,
"title": "The Year in Review for 1982",
"description": "The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983).",
"opening_date": "1983-01-05T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310042,
"title": "Images of the Mind",
"description": "Images of the Mind. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 7-August 30, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1987-07-07T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Lucien Freud, London; Mrs. Brenda Bomford, Aldbourne, England",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Born in Dublin, Ireland, Bacon developed his signature motif of screaming heads trapped in glass or metal cages while working in London in the late 1940s and early \u201850s. The exploration of extreme states of emotion in these inwardly tortured figures reflects the influence of Surrealism. Bacon certainly knew Salvador Dal\u00ed\u2018s The Dream, a featured painting in the London International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936, and now displayed in this gallery. Bacon\u2018s isolated heads have strong affinities with the caged figures in the paintings and sculptures of his close friend, Alberto Giacometti.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60475043"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \u201cYear in Review for 1982.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 1 (January 1983): 3\u201355.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 23; Mentioned: p. 51, no. 22",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159799"
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. \"A Painting by Francis Bacon.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 9 (November 1983): 354-359.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 354; Mentioned: P. 354-359",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159833"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Images of the Mind. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 29",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Sylvester, David. Looking Back at Francis Bacon. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 36",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Bacon, Francis. Van Gogh by Bacon. Arles: Actes sud, Arles : Actes sud : Fondation Vincent Van Gogh-Arles, 2002.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 52-53",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1982.56",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 151011,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3369,
"description": "Francis Bacon (British, 1909\u20131992)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1909",
"death_year": "1992",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1982-07-19T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1951,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1951",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-06-25 11:12:54.773000"
}
}