One of five children, Francis Bacon was born in Dublin to English parents in 1909. By the late twenties, he had settled in London and was making a name for himself as a furniture designer. He soon rejected this path and turned to painting and although he had nor formal art training, he began gaining recognition as a painter in the early 1930's.His major impact on the art world began, however, in 1944 with his Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Though he was initially inspired by Surrealism, Bacon's work was frequently influenced by the imagery of the old masters, usually translated into blurred and gory figures imprisoned in unspecific, architectural settings. A technical perfectionist, Bacon destroyed a great deal of his copious output.