The Alligator Chair

"Bacon questions nothing, unravels nothing. He accepts that the worst has happened …
it becomes clear that you can live with the worst, that you can go on painting it again
and again, that you can turn it into more and more elegant art, that you can put velvet
and gold frames around it, that other people will buy it to hang on the walls of the rooms
where they eat. Bacon’s art is essentially conformist."

John Berger, 'The Worst is Not Yet Come (Francis Bacon)', in Paul Barker, ed., Arts in Society, 1977





Interior from the Paris penthouse of Giancarlo Giammetti (honorary president of Valentino Fashion House)

"The show stoppers in the apartment at the Francis Bacon painting, Study for a Portrait of George Dyer,
in front of which sits a Claude Lalanne alligator chair. It was mentioned in both articles [Vogue 1997,
Town and Country 2004] that the curves of the painting mirror those of the bay window which turns out
was not a coincidence. 'We changed the bay' said Marino [Peter Marino, architect]. Evidence that no
detail was overlooked and no expense was spared!"

Image and text from the blog 'A Bout Life Styles'