Irish painter’s Trotsky triptych set to bring home plenty of bacon

A work by Francis Bacon is expected to fetch up to R1.1bn at a Christie’s auction next week

24 February 2022 - 20:08 By Will Russell and Marie-Louise Gumuchian

A Francis Bacon triptych that depicts the aftermath of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky’s 1940 assassination in Mexico City is expected to fetch up to $75m (about R1.1bn) when it goes under the hammer next week.

Described by Christie’s as among the iconoclastic Irish-born painter’s last great works, Triptych 1986-7 features then US president Woodrow Wilson leaving the post-World War 1 Treaty of Versailles meeting in 1919 and Bacon’s friend, John Edwards, on its other two canvases...

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