Francis Bacon’s Landscape near Malabata, Tangier (1963), a painting that stands as a powerful and passionate memorial to his great love Peter Lacy, will be a highlight at Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale in London on March 7. Created in London the year after Lacy’s tragic death in Tangier, the painting depicts the landscape where he was laid to rest. Here, the artist pays tribute to their relationship in a unique image of grief, desire, and longing. Having remained in the same collection for more than 20years, this marks the first time the painting has been offered at auction since 1985 when it set a then world auction record for Francis Bacon. The estimate now is £15 – £20 million. Often exhibited internationally it was included in the landmark 1971-72 lifetime retrospective at the Grand Palais, Paris, and was most recently exhibited in the Royal Academy’s ‘Francis Bacon: Man and Beast’, in 2022. Francis Bacon met Peter Lacy at the Colony Room in Soho in 1952. Lacy, a former fighter pilot, was a deeply troubled man whose mercurial personality wrote its way into Bacon’s life and art. The two shared deep, complex feelings towards one another.
