Bacon, Freud, and the School of London: A Major Exhibition at Chiostro del Bramante

The Chiostro del Bramante in Rome is hosting 'Bacon, Freud, la Scuola di Londra,' an exhibition curated by Elena Crippa that explores the informal collective of artists known as the School of London. The term was first coined by painter R.B. Kitaj in 1976 for the exhibition 'The Human City' at the Arts Council of Great Britain, referring to artists living in London in the 1950s and 1960s who shared mutual respect and were shaped by the aftermath of World War II. The show features 45 works from 1945 to 2004 by six artists: Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Paula Rego, Leon Kossoff, and Michael Andrews, all drawn from the Tate Modern collection. The exhibition is structured around two main themes: portraiture and landscape. In portraiture, Freud's intimate, psychologically intense depictions of close acquaintances contrast with Bacon's distorted, anguished faces based on reproduced images. Kossoff and Auerbach offer more expressionistic approaches. The landscape section includes works like Rego's 'The Dance' (1988) and Andrews's 'A Man who Suddenly Fell Over' (1952), while Kossoff and Auerbach render London scenes through layered memories. The exhibition runs at the Chiostro del Bramante in Rome.