However, a more likely interpretation is that Bacon intended the paintings destroyed, and, immediately. The Bacon estate, typically, claimed the sketches were fakes and threatened to peruse legal action if Art Review showed them, which they eventually did, but not after gaining substantial supplement inches and eventually selling a record number of issues. These so-called lost works, numbering some 500 sketches and drawings, eventually began too look like carefully orchestrated hype. Many commentators seemed afraid to say one way or the other. Channel 4 in the UK screened a one hour program on the controversy.
Observers look on wearily.
And he doubtless feared that owning up to making sketches might have lessened the force of such talk. However, I had been gullible enough not to have realised that these were but the tip of an iceberg. A further eight newly revealed paintings go on exhibit at Faggionato Fine Art, London. See article here . Works on Paper opens at the Irish Museaum of Modern Art in Dublin to unquestioning excitement.