Three important paintings by Irish-born artist Francis Bacon which are going under the hammer today at an auction are expected to raise more than €1 million.
The three works will be sold as part of an auction of Post War Art taking place at Christie's in London.
The bleak pieces have been described as demonstrating Bacon at his most existential and are good examples of his angst-ridden style of later years.
His 1954 work, Man In Blue VII, is the earliest of his paintings up for sale and is expected to fetch between €500,000 and €700,000.
It was the culmination of a series of pictures he painted while staying in the Imperial Hotel in Henley-on-Thames, near his lover, Peter Lacy's house.
Head, painted in 1962, depicts the head of a surgeon with a lamp strapped to it.
Described as one of his darker works, it was completed in the year that Lacy died and is expected to fetch up to half a million pounds.
The final piece is titled Portrait of Man with Glasses IV which was painted in 1963 and is expected to fetch in the region of €400,000.
It depicts the image of a man whose distorted face looks as if it had been beaten to a pulp.
Bacon's reputation has increased since his death in 1992 with his most valuable painting, selling for more than 6 million in New York last year.
PA
