This Foundation initiated by Majid Boustany is dedicated to promoting a deeper understanding of Francis Bacon’s art, life and working practice, with a particular focus on the time the artist lived and worked in Monaco and France.
His first encounter with Francis Bacon’s oeuvre goes back to his academic years in London in the early 1990s. While pursuing his studies in business and international relations, he enrolled in a short course in history of art. During a visit to the Tate Gallery, Majid Boustany was confronted with Bacon’s enigmatic triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) which challenged interpretation and triggered in him the need to explore his oeuvre. His immersion into Bacon’s work, life and creative process started in those years and continues to this day.
Majid Boustany discovered early on in his reading that Bacon lived and worked in Monaco from July 1946 to the early 1950s. Throughout his life the artist frequently returned to the Principality, staying for extensive periods together with his family, lovers and circle of friends. He talked most spontaneously about the time he spent in Monaco and often made references to the work he managed to accomplish there, despite many distractions.
Contemplating Bacon’s attachment to and fascination with Monaco, and after having studied the poignant, timeless work of the British painter for a number of years, Majid Boustany started to conceive the idea of a foundation in Monaco, dedicated to this singular artist. In 2010 he initiated the project thanks to the pivotal support of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco and the Monegasque authorities. The Estate of Francis Bacon encouraged this unique initiative and Martin Harrison, editor of the artist’s Catalogue Raisonné, is on the Foundation’s board. On 28 October 2014, the anniversary of the painter’s birth, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation, a non-profit institution, was inaugurated by the Sovereign.
Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944)
Photo © Tate, London 2017
I conceived the Foundation as a tribute to this singular artist. It is through the response from our visitors – whether art historians, friends of the painter, or those pursuing a personal interest in Bacon’s oeuvre – that I can appreciate, with deep satisfaction, how much our institution has achieved.
Majid Boustany
Founder | Director