Francis Bacon
...ht often and Bacon was even horsewhipped. At the age of sixteen, he was forced to leave his home because his father did not approve of his homosexual lifestyle. It is perhaps because of his rough childhood that Bacon chose the mainly tragic subjects of his paintings. After leaving home, Bacon moved to Berlin for a few years but was drawn to the London art scene and settled there. He made a good living in London designing steel and glass furniture and mirrors and Art-Deco rugs, but continued painting. Since Bacon thought his work was no good, he destroyed all but ten of the canvases he painted from 1929-1944. Perhaps this is why he went basically unknown until 1945. The paintings that he did not destroy received many artistic honors and Bacon was the subject of many important retrospectives in New York City, Washington, Paris, Moscow, and Tokyo ...