Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86
Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86 is a triptych painted between 1985 and 1986 by the Irish-born English artist Francis Bacon. It is a brutally honest examination of the effect of age and time on the human body and spirit and was painted in the aftermath of the deaths of many of his close friends. It is Bacon's only full-length self-portrait, and was described by art critic David Sylvester as "grand, stark, ascetic".
The triptych is widely considered a masterpiece and one of Bacon's most personal works, but is one of his least experimental and most conventional paintings. Bacon believed that the fatigue of old age and the complications of fame led him to appreciate simplicity as a virtue of its own, a sentiment which he attempted to transfer into his work.