A nude painting by renowned Irish artist Francis Bacon, given to London's Royal College of Art in lieu of rent, is expected to fetch up to €13 million at auction in London next month.
The college is selling Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Lightto raise funds to build a campus in Battersea, southwest London. It will be auctioned at Christie's in London on October 14th.
Following a fire at his London studio in 1969, the artist took up a short tenancy at the college while his studio was being rebuilt and paid his rent, college rector Sir Christopher Frayling said, "in spectacular pictorial form".
In return for the studio space, Bacon offered Study for Bullfight No. 1as payment.
In 1975, the artist requested the picture for the Francis Bacon retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the college was given Study from the Human Bodyas a replacement.
The substitute painting was so popular that the college asked that they be allowed to keep it.
"When the college first discussed the possibility of selling this picture, I met with Francis Bacon to ask for his views of the proposed sale," Sir Terence Conran, Provost of the Royal College of Art, said.
"It pays great testament to his benevolent nature that he gave the decision his support. It is a fitting tribute to Francis Bacon that the rent from his short tenancy at the college will now be used to help countless future generations of students," he said.
Bacon was born in 1909 in Dublin to English parents and moved to London in 1926. He made his name with angst-ridden paintings of twisted and mutated forms. He died of a heart attack in Madrid in 1992.
Today, his works are among the most popular at auction. In May his Study from Innocent Xsold for $52.6 million (€39 million) in New York.
