Self-Portrait with Injured Eye, 1972

The first time this painting was ever exhibited publicly was in Centro Botín, Spain, as part of their "Portraits: Essence and Expression" exhibit in 2019.

Spanish art collector and banker, Jaime Botín, loaned a total of eight pieces from his private collection to the Botín Foundation. They wrapped around the walls of the first floor in the Centro Botín and showcased artists such as Henri Matisse, Daniel Vázquez Díaz and Juan Gris.

Ten of Bacon’s fifteen completed works in 1972 were self-portraits in which his face is macerated in some way. Bacon’s violent expressionist style in Self- Portrait with Injured Eye,1972, communicates the desperation and loneliness he felt at the time,

When discussing self-portraiture with David Sylvester in 1975, Bacon stated, 'I’ve done a lot of self-portraits, really because people have been dying around me like flies and I’ve had nobody else to paint but myself.’

David Sylvester, Looking Back at Francis Bacon, 2000, Thames and Hudson, London.