‘Or is it Bacon in drag?’: How to find an unknown sitter’s identity

After an article appeared in The Guardian newspaper in 2014, the variety of labels that had been ascribed to one of John Deakin’s photographs became apparent and prompted the question, ‘or is it Bacon in drag?’ from a contributor to the newspaper’s comments stream. This conversation outlines the steps undertaken by Paul Rousseau, the archivist at The John Deakin Archive, to investigate whether the sitter in this photograph could indeed be the artist Francis Bacon in drag. Applying 3D modelling techniques with facial recognition software and employing forensic experts, Rousseau posits hypotheses as to why this sitter could be Francis Bacon. Comparing the sitters in a set of archive images titled ‘transvestites’ to other images from private collections and to a set of found images of Bacon posing for the camera in Y-fronts, this investigation prompts speculation about the ‘evidence’ for and against the photograph in question being of Bacon.