A remarkable discovery was made when Rebecca Daniels opened a book on Picasso dating from 1928 in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and found two previously unknown sketches that she here attributes to Francis Bacon. Dated to c.1933, they are related to the artist’s lost portrait of his early patron Michael Sadler and his evolving ideas for the seminal painting Three studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion (Tate). Daniels’s article in this month’s issue explores the significance of the sketches in depth. The March issue also includes the publication by David Franklin of a rediscovered Pietà by Andrea del Sarto and Maria Clelia Galassi’s analysis of a fragment from a monumental, ephemeral work by Frans Floris. Other contributions range from Cecilia Vicentini’s study of drawings by the eighteenth-century artist Giuseppe Antonio Ghedini to Richard Thomson’s reassessment of the remarkably varied work by the French painter Jean-Charles Cazin in the 1880s.
Exhibition reviews include Jeremy Lewison on Mark Rothko in Paris and Catherine Grant assessing Women in Revolt! in London. Catalogue and book reviews feature Alison Wright discussing the drawings of the Pollaiulolo brothers, Caterina Volpi on Luca Giordano, Luke Farey appraising Lucian Freud and Mark Stocker highlighting the work of New Zealand artist Don Binney.
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