30 Apr 2022

James Birch: bringing the Bacon to Moscow

From Saturday Morning, 9:09 am on 30 April 2022

Photo: Supplied

English curator and art dealer James Birch is arguably best known for his innovative ways of championing British art – including exhibiting the works of figurative painter Francis Bacon in Moscow in the late 1980s, when Russia was part of the USSR.

Birch first met Bacon when he was a little boy, and maintained a close relationship with the artist until the end of his life in 1992. Birch’s new book Bacon In Moscow tells the story of his audacious effort to bring Bacon’s raw, unsettling works to more than 400,000 Soviet citizens.

James Birch in The Kremlin. Photograph by Bob Chenciner.

Young James in the bath, photographed by Francis Bacon.

Part of a four-page letter from Francis Bacon to James Birch saying he wanted to do the show in the USSR.

Queue outside the central house of artists, Moscow.

Elena Khudiakova outside the exhibition hall.

James Birch and Elena Khudiakova.

John Edwards alongside a poster of his portrait.

John Edwards in front of 'Study for Self Portrait' triptych, 1985-86.

John Edwars and Vladimir Zamkov in front of 'Study For A Portrait of John Edwards'. 1988.

Sergei Klockov and James in The Kremlin. Photograph by Robert Chenciner.

James Birch and Sergei Klockov in National Hotel. Photograph by Bob Chenciner.

Denis Wirth-Miller, Francis Bacon, and Dickie Chopping in Uzes, South of France, 1985.Photograph Claudia Lennon.