Unquiet Forms: Giacometti, Bacon, Halé and the Enduring Human Condition

Special Project at White Chapel Somerset, May 9-31, 2025

“The more I work, the more I see things differently – that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful.” — Alberto Giacometti

“I’ve always hoped to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.” — Francis Bacon

“I want to understand the head and face - and the more I discover, the more I realise how little I know”  — Pierre Halé

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Alberto Gaicomettti, Portrait of Annette, giclee 1961, Francis Bacon, Portrait of a Man, 1966, Pierre Halé, Bust of a Woman, 2025

In the wake of two world wars, a new visual language emerged—raw, existential, stripped of illusion. At its vanguard stood Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) and Francis Bacon (1909-1992), artists who transformed the figure into a site of psychological confrontation and metaphysical weight. Their work, though distinct, resonates with uncanny synchrony across time and media, forming twin trajectories through the post-war modernist movement.

This project brings them into formal dialogue for the first time through the lens of their graphic works printed by Mourlot for Derrière le Miroir, published by Galerie Maeght—a shared platform where artists pushed the boundaries of representation and the printed page. Crucially, this historic conversation is extended through the inclusion of Pierre Halé, a contemporary French painter whose studio-based practice and existential figuration channel the preoccupations of his forebears. Halé lives and works in Dorset, where he shares a home with the artist and novelist Lulu Allison. Her presence, like those of Annette Giacometti, and George Dyer, in his predecessor’s lives, speaks to the ongoing significance of close relationships and creative exchange within the studio. On May 10, Allison will speak at the opening of the exhibition on painting character in both paint and prose, alongside Pierre Hale,  adding a contemporary dimension to the discussion around portraiture and narrative identity.

In a world once again marked by instability, trauma and displacement, this triadic encounter between past and present invites urgent reflection on the enduring question: what does it mean to be human?

Figure and Space: The Cage, the Void, the Plinth

In Bacon’s paintings, the figure is typically confined to a shallow, often geometric interior—a psychological cage, a theatre of flesh. Giacometti’s drawings and sculptures, by contrast, isolate the body on narrow plinths or vast voids, evoking an almost archaeological presence. Yet both artists insist on the bare essence of human form, stripped of narrative or context.

The vertical thrust of Giacometti’s attenuated sculptures finds an eerie counterpart in Bacon’s vertical, contorted figures—many of whom, like Giacometti’s, appear flayed or eroded by time. Where Giacometti uses subtraction, Bacon employs dissolution, but both arrive at a similar existential register: the figure as a fragile signal in the void. In Hale’s work, the gestural brushwork trigger an instinctive, emotional response.

Muses and Mirrors: Annette, Isabel and Lulu

Both Giacometti and Bacon returned obsessively to intimate sitters, whose faces became psychological arenas. 

Giacometti sculpted and painted his wife Annette and his brother Diego repeatedly—not as portraits in the traditional sense, but as attempts to see the unseeable, to grasp the “reality of presence.” Annette, in particular, became a fixed reference point, her gaze often acting as an anchor for the viewer amid Giacometti’s disintegrating spatial fields.

Isabel Rawsthorne, a painter and designer, is a common link between Alberto Gaicometti and Francis Bacon; so it is fitting that she appears twice in works by Bacon in this show, once alongside a Halé portrait, and latterly hanging alongside a Giacometti.  

Isabel had a close relationship with Alberto Giacometti. They met in Paris in 1935 and became friends, with Giacometti creating her first sculpture bust in 1936. They had a romantic relationship and were mutually influential in each other's artistic development. While they were separated by World War II, they maintained contact and reunited briefly in 1945. 

She also had a profound influence on Bacon’s work whom she first met in 1947. She became a close friend and artistic muse, appearing in his paintings as a key figure in his circle of collaborators and confidantes.

She was immortalised in multiple works by Bacon, some of which were translated into lithographs. Her striking features and independent spirit helped define a visual dialogue between both artists' representations of female strength and psychological nuance. His lover George Dyer also appeared in over 40 paintings. Dyer’s muscular vulnerability and tragic arc (he died by suicide just before Bacon’s 1971 retrospective at the Grand Palais) infused the work with emotional volatility, a blend of intimacy and violence. 

Bacon’s lithographic oeuvre, produced in collaboration with Mourlot, also features other significant figures from his inner circle. Henrietta Moraes, a close friend and frequent subject, is depicted in a 1966 colour lithograph published in Derrière le Miroir, capturing her intense presence and complex persona. Lucian Freud, Bacon's friend and artistic rival, is the subject of the renowned 1969 triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which, while originally an oil painting, has been reproduced in lithographic form. Perhaps most significantly,

This dynamic continues in the contemporary practice of Pierre Halé, who works in a small studio in the garden of the home he shares with artist and novelist Lulu Allison. Their creative partnership—like those of Bacon and Giacometti—speaks to the vital role of shared intimacy and dialogue in the making of psychologically rich work. Allison’s presence in the exhibition, offering reflections on character in both paint and prose, extends this continuum into the present, inviting a conversation about how narrative, emotion, and lived connection shape artistic production.

Studio as State of Mind

Both Giacometti’s and Bacon’s studios were legendary. Giacometti’s tiny Montparnasse atelier was dense with dust, stacked with abandoned plaster heads and skeletal figures. Visitors described it as a “cave” or “sanctuary of failure,” where the artist would scrape down and remake sculptures endlessly. He once remarked, “All I can do will never be more than a clumsy approximation of what I see.”

Bacon’s Reece Mews studio in London, similarly chaotic, was crammed with photographs, books, and paint-streaked walls. He worked quickly and intuitively, yet his space was a carefully maintained theatre of control and chaos, where chance accidents could lead to breakthroughs. He famously said, “I paint to excite myself. And if I can’t do that, then I’m not doing anything.”

Halé, too, embraces the solitude and intensity of the studio. His quiet, meditative practice mirrors the focused engagement of his predecessors, underscoring the studio not simply as a site of production, but as a crucible of thought, emotion, and existential enquiry.

Existence, Trauma, and the Post-War Gaze

Giacometti and Bacon emerged from an era where the body had been bombarded, dislocated, and politically erased. Their figures—though formally distinct—articulate a shared post-war trauma. Neither offered consolation. Both presented the human being as alone, exposed, and mortal. Bacon once described his figures as “images of the wound,” and Giacometti spoke of trying to render “the distance between a person and me.”

In this way, their works can be seen as portraits of consciousness, not likeness. Their interest in existentialism, psychoanalysis, and non-Western art forms further distanced them from traditional representation, aligning them instead with the crisis of modernity. Today, these preoccupations have found new relevance, as global society grapples with instability, conflict, displacement, and the trauma of exposure to an unrelenting digital gaze. The figure remains a contested site, a mirror to violence and vulnerability.

Pierre Halé: Echoes of Modernist Introspection

Introducing Pierre Halé into this exhibition extends the conversation between Bacon and Giacometti into the present day. A French-born painter based in Dorset, Halé studied Fine Art at Saint Martins School of Art in London during the early 1980s. His oil paintings fuse classical and modern techniques, creating works rich in psychological depth and expressive intensity.

Halé's practice resonates with Giacometti's in his methodical approach to portraiture. Working from classical busts within the confines of his studio, Halé engages in a process of continual observation and reinterpretation, much like Giacometti's relentless pursuit to capture the essence of his subjects. This disciplined yet exploratory method results in paintings that are both intimate and universal, reflecting a deep engagement with the human form.

However, unlike Giacometti, Halé’s process is more immediate, often bypassing preliminary drawings. As he states, “I can’t waste time with drawing anymore, I need to get straight to it – the essence of the thing.” This approach, where he focuses directly on oil paint and the physicality of the canvas, mirrors Bacon’s urgency and raw immediacy in his own process. Halé’s use of impasto—where the paint is applied in thick, textured layers—amplifies this sense of immediacy, imbuing his works with a tactile presence that feels both urgent and alive.

Moreover, Halé’s colour palette, rich in flesh tones and earthy hues, further deepens the physical presence of his paintings, drawing a direct parallel to Bacon’s emotive and visceral use of colour. The tones of raw skin, warm reds, and muted ochres—so central to Bacon’s exploration of the human form—are echoed in Halé’s work, evoking a similar sense of the body’s vulnerability and psychological weight. This shared use of colour intensifies the emotional and physical immediacy of Halé’s paintings, bringing a palpable, visceral presence to the exhibition.

By incorporating Halé's original oil paintings into this exhibition, we bring a contemporary pulse to the show, adding a living energy to the works of Giacometti and Bacon. The physicality and urgency of Halé’s paintings, coupled with his rich, evocative palette, act as a bridge to the intense emotional and psychological energy of the post-war period. His work does not merely echo the concerns of Bacon and Giacometti—it supercharges the emotional and existential resonance of the entire exhibition.

The inclusion of Halé’s oil on canvas works within this context does more than enhance the dialogue between these three artists. It reinforces the vitality and immediacy of art as a living, breathing form—a testament to the power of painting to explore the very essence of human existence, as it unfolds in real time.

Legacy: Why Now?

Bringing Giacometti, Bacon, and Halé together in 2025, through their graphic works made with Mourlot and published by Maeght, reanimates their central roles in 20th- and 21st-century art history. This exhibition reveals how the figure—whether through original lithography, painterly translation, or contemporary introspection—remains a crucial site of engagement with existence, perception, and the human condition.

Their shared commitment to the figure as truth and paradox places them at the heart of a Modernist legacy that continues to shape contemporary sensibilities. As war, displacement, and global trauma persist, their work reminds us that the most personal image can be the most universal—and that art still bears witness.

All works by Giacometti and Bacon featured in this exhibition are available for purchase through Modern-Originals.com, the fine art platform founded by exhibition curator and White Chapel Somerset director Miranda Glover.

Article authored by Miranda Glover, curator and director White Chapel Somerset