Lovers’ drunken brawl nearly cost Francis Bacon an eye, diaries reveal

The spat and injury inspired Bacon to paint his violent expressionist canvas Self-Portrait with Injured Eye

Francis Bacon feared for his sight in one eye and how it would affect his future as a painter after he was seriously injured in a drunken brawl with a lover in 1972, it has emerged.

Part of the evidence comes from the previously unpublished diaries of the late Denis Wirth-Miller, who was Bacon's friend for 45 years, although their relationship was famously turbulent.