Francis Bacon flung open the twentieth-century closet. By day he exposed the secrets of a dark century, and by night he swashbuckled through Soho, never concealing his homosexuality. Francis Bacon: Revelations, a decade in the making, is the first biography of this seminal artist to appear in twenty-five years. Based upon hundreds of interviews and extensive new material from Ireland, Tangier, Spain, England, and France, Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan have written a startlingly original portrait – rich, complex, and subtle – of a commanding modern figure. This is a story, deeply researched and masterfully told, of a sickly boy who became one of the great figures of his time. The twentieth century does not know itself without Bacon. (A Times Book of the Year 2021)