The Horror and Distortion of Bacon (Sotheby's)

Lincoln Townley’s visceral figurative paintings are fictive portrayals drawn entirely from the artist’s imagination. The influence of Francis Bacon here cannot be denied, and akin to the Twentieth Century master’s radical distortion of the human figure, Townley’s own figures make manifest the existential turmoil of our own Twenty-First Century moment.

The present three paintings belong to Townley’s series of Bankers: head and shoulders portraits of be-suited businessmen sporting viscerally painted faces which loom out of abyssal backdrops and emerge directly into our own space.

In these works, Townley combines the horror and distortion of Bacon with the thick and sculptural paint application synonymous with Frank Auerbach’s best portraits of the 1950s.

Bankers Beware, by Lincoln Townley (2021)

Indeed, Townley’s work is strongly affined with this particular moment and milieu in postwar British art history: the gilded-gutter life of Soho during the 1950s, 60s and 70s oozes off the surface of Townley’s art. Having spent his earlier career as a West End nightclub promoter, Townley’s paintings are infused with the same gritty yet bohemian atmosphere of Soho – a Soho that today, sanitised and commercialised, no longer exists. The commercialisation of this part of bohemian London speaks to the interesting power dichotomy at work in Townley’s series of portraits: that of art and money.

Bankers for Townley are perhaps what the Popes were to Francis Bacon – symbols of despotic power and unquestionable authority.

In today’s society we are ruled not by figures of religious authority and power but by the bigmoney-men; shadowy, anonymous figures are now the ones pulling the strings.

Executed using business cards – many of which once belonged to wealthy clients from Townley’s Soho days – these paintings are built-up, scraped and swiped with an aggressive and expressive energy that echoes the extreme manipulation and behind-the-scenes machinations of corporate banks and their dominating influence on the way we live our lives today.

Emma Baker; Sotheby’s, London