Three Figures in a Room
Three Figures in a Room is a 1964 oil painting on canvas by British artist Francis Bacon. It is a triptych made of three panels, each 198 by 147 centimeters (78 by 58 inches). The work shows three views of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer, who he met in 1963. It is the first Bacon painting to feature Dyer, and the artist returned to him in many later works. The piece is also noted as Bacon’s first secular triptych.
The three canvases share the same space, with a brown curved floor and yellow walls that continue across all panels. Dyer appears three times in the same room, in different, twisted poses, without a single narrative connecting them. In the left panel, Dyer is naked and sits on a toilet, facing away. In the center panel, he rests on a large black bed or chair. In the right panel, he sits twisted on a tall pedestal chair. The bold brushes create strong splashes of color.
Critics mention possible influences: the creased back of the left figure may recall Degas’s After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself, and perhaps the Belvedere Torso. Some see the center and right figures echoing Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel sculptures, and they note similarities with Henri Matisse’s Bathers with a Turtle.
The French state bought the painting in 1968, and it has been part of the Centre Pompidou collection since 1976.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 17:04 (CET).