Picasso - Bacon

Exhibition at the Albertina, Vienna, 18 September 2026 – 31 January 2027

Over the course of five decades marked by political upheaval, war and cultural shifts, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Francis Bacon (1909–1992) engaged in an uncompromising exploration of what it means to be human — through violence and vulnerability, erotic tension and psychological exposure, historical traumas and personal torments. Picasso’s radical formal experiments of the 1920s and 1930s provided a crucial starting point for Bacon’s early paintings, whilst each artist developed, in his own way, distinct yet overlapping responses to suffering, power and desire.

By placing the work of Bacon and Picasso in a sustained visual and conceptual dialogue, this exhibition catalogue examines one of the most significant artistic relationships of the twentieth century. It traces parallel explorations of the body under strain – the scream, imagery of the crucifixion, the distortion of the flesh and the persistent return to the sources of the great masters – and presents new research into the literary, psychological and visual frameworks shared by the two artists, revealing how modern life – war, spectacle, intimacy and catastrophe – shaped their radically different yet deeply interconnected approaches to human presence.