Bacon work tipped for record at New York auction

New York (ANTARA News) - A painting by Dublin-born British artist Francis Bacon is tipped to fetch a record 70 million dollars when it goes under the hammer in New York in May, Sotheby's said Monday.

"Triptych, 1976," described by the auction house as "a masterwork of the first order" and rich in symbolism drawing on ancient Greek mythology, is to go on sale on May 14.

"This is undoubtedly the most important Bacon in private hands. It has been with the same collection ever since it was acquired" 30 years ago, Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's worldwide head of contemporary art, was quoted by AFP as saying in a statement.

"It is a masterpiece of the 20th century," he added.

The triptych was the centerpiece of Bacon's show at the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris in 1977, considered the artist's most important display of new works of the 1970s.

The painting's three panels show Bacon's lucid imagination with allegorical depictions drawing on the myth of Prometheus, who, according to legend, was bound to a rock where his liver was repeatedly devoured by an eagle.

The work is said to be symbolic of the artist's inner demons.

The current record for a Bacon was set last year in New York, when his "Study from Innocent X" (1962) sold for 52.7 million -- at the time also setting a record for any work by a British or Irish artist sold at auction. (*) end