‘Portrait of Francis Bacon’: The stolen Lucian Freud painting that is lost forever
Ahead of a major retrospective exhibition at the Tate in 2001, figurative artist Lucian Freud made a public plea. He wasn’t trying to drum up more interest in the show but desperately appealing to a thief after one of his copper works was stolen. “Would the person who holds the painting kindly consider allowing me to show it in my exhibition next June,” he asked, in vain. The painting, a portrait of Francis Bacon, has still never been found.
The mystery surrounding its disappearance only added to its infamy, and Freud was so bereft it was lost that he demanded that the few photographs of it be shown in black and white. He’d started a second painting of his artistic peer, but the missing one was the only version he ever completed. When it first debuted in 1988, the work was briefly well-received. That’s not to say the viewers in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie got cold feet about their love of the painting – it was just that it was stolen before anyone could form a long-lasting opinion.
The gallery was teeming with students and art critics, who were all milling around the exhibit, closely watched by guards. It became quickly apparent one very crucial piece was missing. In one of the art world’s boldest thefts, in broad daylight and surrounded by onlookers, someone walked out with Francis Bacon tucked under their arm.
Likely, to the delight of the thief and the regret of Freud, this was a particularly small painting, almost the perfect size to be smuggled out in a briefcase. The oil portrait had been painted on a sheet of copper in 1952 and was only 7-by-5 inches in size.
A panicked appeal to get it back ensued, involving “wanted” posters promising a 300,000 DM reward for its recovery, but the steep cash offering didn’t entice the thief. In 2008, art critic Robert Hughes reviewed the Tate’s Francis Bacon exhibition and recalled a conversation he’d had with Freud following the theft. The only conclusion Freud could draw was that the thief wasn’t a fan of his. He believed it was a Bacon superfan who’d taken it because only that “would justify the risk”.
Though a rare picture of the painting, taken hours before its eventual theft, was released in David Scherf’s 2021 book, Lucian Freud: The Copper Paintings, the late Freud had always insisted photos of the painting be shown only in black and white. “Partly,” he explained to The Telegraph, “Because there was no decent colour reproduction, partly as a kind of mourning.” He approached it with humour, but it was a reminder of his loss – both of the painting and his late friend Bacon.
“The painting is quite near monochrome, so it comes out quite well, and I thought it was a rather jokey equivalent to a black armband,” he joked. “You know – there it isn’t!”
