'The Outsider'

'Every artist goes back over history and revises it and he left out Ireland...'

This Thursday Adam presents Francis Bacon: The Outsider, an RTÉ documentary made with art historian Dr Margarita Cappock, marking the thirtieth anniversary of the acclaimed painter's death. The focus is on  the few months in 1929 which Bacon spent in Ireland, the period when he took up painting. 

It was as a teenager that Adam first connected with Bacon's work. In a wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Independent (which calls the programme 'a vital piece of detective work, beautifully shot') Adam explains that it all came about through a piece of luck, after the documentary maker Karen McGrath learned he was pitching ideas for art documentaries. 

'I think it's really special,' he says of the finished work.

'Maybe because he was born in Ireland, it somehow resonated with me…he was an artist who with a few brushstrokes could bring you right to the edge of chaos.'

Of the period he explores in The Outsider he adds, 'This is a vision of Francis Bacon the artist before he put on the mask of Francis Bacon the artist…'

Francis Bacon: The Outsider is on RTÉ One, Thursday 15th December at 10.15pm.