Francis Bacon in Your Blood

A far more intimate work than his Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (1996), still considered the definitive account of Bacon's life and work, this new book offers the most personal portrait yet published of the great artist

Michael Peppiatt studied at the University of Cambridge, where he began his career as an art writer by writing exhibition reviews for the Observer. In an international career as a writer and curator, he has curated numerous exhibitions of Francis Bacon's and other artists' work and been published in Réalités magazine, Le Monde, the New York Times, the Financial Times, Art News and Art International, which he bought and relaunched in 1985. He is also the author of the definitive Bacon biography, the 1997 Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma. In 2005 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge for his published work in the field of twentieth-century art. He is a member of the Society of Authors and the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2010 he joined the international board of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.

This fine portrait of the artist is both gossipy and poignant . [and] one of the best art books I have read, by turns atmospheric and waspishly gossipy but also profound and poignant.
A vivid new memoir by the artist's protégé is set to be a classic . highly entertaining . the narrative comes hurtling off the page with a palpable sense of release and apparently guileless, even artless, candour.The cavalcade of bohemian celebrities goes on and on . captivating...a classic, not only of art writing, but of personal memoir
There is a certain grisly satisfaction in watching an artist behave as one expects an artist to. Francis Bacon . always delivered and just how richly is recorded by Peppiatt . A wonderfully vivid account
The best art memoir published in years
An intoxicating tour of the painter's louchest, and most productive, years
Peppiatt offers a window into the experiences and emotional intelligence of this great artist
A remarkable book ... it captures what it was like to be in the presence of this brilliant, camp, reckless, waspish, drunken, generous, shameless character. Michael Peppiatt brings him back to life and somehow carries off the near-impossible trick of echoing the repetitive nature of his drunken talk ... while somehow preserving his electricity and effervescence
An intimate memoir of two intense and interlaced lives ... Full of gossip, binges, nausea, bruises, stained sheets, punchlines and death wishes
This fine memoir is more insightful than gossipy, and as a subject Bacon is just about unbeatable
Fascinating and engaging
Entertaining, calculated and acerbic, Michael Peppiatt really does seem to have a bit of Bacon in his blood
Every page is fresh, immediate, and flashing with glimpses into Bacon's complicated psyche
An affecting personal narrative about his friendship with the great painter
Francis Bacon's views on art, death and his bohemian circle make revealing reading in this enjoyable memoir
An enthralling, delightful story of two very different men
Part diary, part art history, part love letter, his memoir captures what it was like to know this brilliant, camp genius . an excellent glimpse into a vanished London bohemia