Francis Bacon Anthology

The contemporary art market has hit such hard times that even eternal bankables like Francis Bacon are being affected; even a relatively cheap painting of his failed to sell at Sotheby's in December. Expect interest in the twisted Irish genius to revive when a massive centenary exhibition if his work opens in at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art in the spring, however. Meanwhile, you can sate yourself on a slew of new Bacon books just hitting shelves. For starters there's an English edition of a lavish catalog produced for an exhibition in Milan earlier this year, Francis Bacon: Anthology by Rudy Chiappini (above), which covers the whole of Bacon's oeuvre dating from the 1930s, as well as a revised edition of Michel Leiris' landmark monograph on the artist. Others focus on Bacon's portraits and his photography collection - but if you just want a nice buzz as opposed to an OD, we'd go with the Anthology.