The extraordinarily revealing interviews with Francis Bacon conducted over a period of 25 years by the distinguished art critic David Sylvester amount to a unique statement by Bacon on his art and on art in general. As a discussion of the problems of making art, the book has been widely influential not only among artists but also among writers and musicians including David Bowie, who named it among his favourite books.

With a rare and brilliant use of language, Bacon talks about his aims as a painter and the ways in which he works, responding always with vivacity and candour to Sylvester’s searching questions.

Bacon’s obsessive effort to record and re-create the human form, his practice of making variations on old masters’ paintings and on photographs, his dependence upon chance, and his views about the way in which his work has been interpreted are only some of the many subjects discussed and investigated in depth during these historic encounters.

Offering unparalleled access to the thought, work and life of one of the creative geniuses of the twentieth century, this book – with its subsequent revised and augmented editions – has become a classic.