Bacon by John Deakin, 1952
1929-1932 Bacon became an interior decorator and furniture designer, setting himself up in a studio at 17 Queensberry Mews West, South Kensington. The pieces he devised were ingenious variations on the modernist language of chrome-plated steel and glass pioneered by designers such as Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray. The sources of Bacon’s technical knowledge and, indeed, the identity of the manufacturer are still unknown; his rugs were made at the Royal Wilton Carpet factory. By August 1930, Bacon had caught the attention of ‘The Studio’ magazine, which presented his designs as examples of the ‘1930 Look in British Decoration’. He even managed to sell a few pieces, though they largely remained within a small circle of friends and occasional patrons.
The man who secured the majority of Bacon’s commissions was an Australian Post-Cubist painter, Roy de Maistre. He also guided the fledgling artist in his first steps in oil painting and by November 1930, Bacon was ready to mount a modest exhibition of paintings and rugs in Queensberry Mews, together with works by de Maistre and an actress/portraitist, Jean Shepeard. Among Bacon’s earliest patrons was Eric Hall, a well-off married man and pillar of the community, who continued an intimate affair with the artist for over 15 years. Despite such rapid progress, Bacon found it difficult to make a living from either his furniture or his paintings.
In 1932 he moved to Fulham road and the following year to 71 Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea. His domestic arrangements were decidedly eccentric. Over the next twenty years he shared various living quarters with his old nanny Jessie Lightfoot, who could also be light with her fingers when either or both their funds ran short.
