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James Birch has been a promoter of modern art exhibitions both in the UK and overseas for over 30 years. He has shown such luminaries as Gilbert & George, Breyer P-Orridge, Eileen Agar and Denis Wirth-Miller amongst many others.
He opened his first gallery, James Birch Fine Art, in 1983, specialising in showing the work of young contemporary artists, including future Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry. A second gallery, Birch & Conran Fine Art, opened in 1987 on Soho’s Dean Street, just a few doors down from the notorious Colony Rooms.
It was also in the web of Soho’s shebeens where, with no persuasion, the legendary painter Francis Bacon agreed to become the first Western artist in over thirty years to exhibit in the USSR.
Having found his diaries during lockdown last year, James embarked on retelling the extraordinary story of this rare intrusion of Western culture during the time of perestroika and glasnost. Amid a flood of memories, James draws the Moscow of 1988 in uproarious, picaresque detail – from the cast of attaches, bureaucrats, and agents to the common humanity of the everyday visitors to one of the most remarkable exhibitions of the 20th century.
Reviews of Bacon In Moscow
“A rollicking cultural adventure before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the meteoric rise of contemporary art in the nineties. James Birch pulls off an artistic coup necessitating endless champagne nights in Soho with Francis Bacon and marathon Moscow vodka sessions with the mysterious Sergei Klokov. Fascinating and true. What a liver!” – Grayson Perry
‘I don’t know much about espionage – but I know what I like, and I love this book. Five gold stars!’ — Harland Miller
‘Funny, exhilarating and heart-breaking all in one go!’ — Polly Stenham
‘James Birch is one of the most original and maverick gallerists and curators in the country and very possibly the world.’ – Robin Dutt
‘This is a curator's memoir more thrilling than most’ – Apollo Magazine
‘Darkly funny… A peculiarly evocative & authentic title… [Birch’s] anecdotes shine’
– The Observer
‘A 'forthright and enjoyably strung-out anecdote about the gallerist’s hidden plight… An enjoyable portrait of two insular, rather dysfunctional societies'
– The Spectator
‘There’s a mini-series itching to get out of this book… It has all the right ingredients’ – The Times
‘A hilarious account of the difficulties of staging an exhibition as the USSR began to crumble’ – The Critic
‘A gripping, rollicking read… The sharply observed details and telling anecdotes brings Francis Bacon and his motley milieu to life in ways that even the most meticulously researched and scholarly biographies never can’
– The Art Newspaper
‘An amusing romp… [Klokov] might have been conjured up by John le Carré’
– The Mail on Sunday
‘Brilliantly entertaining… Bacon in Moscow stands out for its richness’
– Perspective Magazine
‘A preposterously tall tale, filled with outlandish characters, hints of debauchery and decadence and freewheeling adventures’
– Financial Times
Named a Non-Fiction title to Look Out For 2022 by the Observer
Named an Arty Books and Films to Watch Out for in 2022 by Apollo Magazine’
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