Francis Bacon: In Camera at Compton Verney.

I spotted this exhibition in the listings and having been an admirer of Bacon's since my student days. I wanted to see how the photographs would relate to his work. The show was at Compton Verney - a gallery I had kept on passing on the M40 and thinking I would stop at, but one thing and another I had not. The gallery is a little off the beaten track and I prefer to stop at the place coming back to London from Up North, but the right junction you can not turn off going south. This time I was going to make the effort as I no pressing need to get back and a day spare.

Compton Verney is set in the heart of English countryside, that is Warwickshire. Getting off the junction was not too difficult and was sign posted off the motorway. The building was a small country house that had been in the hands of the Verney family for a few centuries until it was sold in the 19th century. Passing through several owners and then falling into semi-neglect. The place has been re-build and the grounds are going through a renewal process. The whole places seems perfectly formed on a small scale with two amazing bridges.

I went to the Bacon exhibition first as I was unsure about how many people might be there and how long it would take. There seemed to be more cars than people, so the whole exhibition was easy to get round without clashing with other viewers. There were a lot of reference shots from the work of Eadweard Muybridge, who produced images showing the movement of people and animals in the later part of the 19th Century. We had photos of various people in Bacon's circle and showing some of the many photos that were found in his studio. Images had been crumpled and broken up. There were one or two paintings, but the exhibition lacked depth.

Another set of rooms had an adjoining exhibition called Deconstructing Bacon and contained other works. Intriguingly, there were some cut canvas that Bacon had 'destroyed' as he became unhappy with them. These two had been exhibited and therefore photographic reproduction was available so you could see the whole image. It was similar to another Bacon with vegetation. It was strange seeing a canvas displayed with mutilation of areas cut out. Reminds me now of the Lord Leverhulme portrait by August John, which was cut up by the owner and of course, Churchill's portrait by Sutherland that was destroyed.

There was a resource center where you could manipulate your own images either in photo booth or by crumpling up magazine pages; along with some of the publications and comments by visitors.

One the other floors, where some examples of British Folk Art, which was one of the first I have seen. There were some typical native pictures but one that interested me was one depicting A Midsummer Night's Dream from the 1860s. This image looked like an Indian Mughal painting, very flat colour with a central couple and puck below at the edge of the canvas.

There were galleries for Chinese statues and objects, 17th-18th Century baroque with some of pictures of Volcanoes and some Tudor & Stuart portraits. My other find was a catalogue of Peter Greenaway exhibition Tusle Luper's 92 Suitcases, which I some how missed in 2004. I was worth a visit, but the Bacon show was disappointing, but this was due to the lack of further works to show the theme better. I look forward to an exhibition that will do the gallery justice.