SAM FRANCIS (1923-1994), Untitled (SF88-480), 1988, Acrylic on paper, 44.5” x 8”

Sam Francis

(American 1923-1994)

Sam Francis was initially influenced by the work of abstract expressionists, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and Clyfford Still. His loose style was most influenced by the work of Jackson Pollock. He later became associated with the second generation of abstract expressionists, including Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler, who were interested in the expressive use of color.

He spent the 1950s in Paris, having his first exhibition there at the Galerie Nina Dausset in 1952. While in Paris he became associated with Tachisme, and had his work championed by art critics Michel Tapié and Claude Duthuit (the son-in-law of the painter Henri Matisse). Between 1950 and 1958 Francis spent time and painted in Paris, the south of France, Tokyo, Mexico City, Bern and New York. His artistic development was affected by his exposure to French modern painting, Asian culture and Zen Buddhism in particular. His paintings of the 1950s evolved through a series of stages, beginning with monochromatic abstractions, followed by larger richly colored murals and “open” paintings that feature large areas of whiteness. After his 1953 painting “Big Red” was included in the 1956 exhibition “Twelve Artists” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Francis began a rapid rise to international prominence. Francis painted large murals for the Kunsthalle, Basel in 1956-1968 and for the Chase Manhattan Bank, New York in 1959.

Between 1960 and 1963 he created several series of works, including the “Blue Balls” series. Consisting of biomorphic predominantly blue forms and drips, these works referenced the pain that resulted from the renal tuberculosis that he suffered in 1961. In the early to mid 1960s Francis was represented by the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York City. He returned to California during the 1960s and continued painting, mainly in Los Angeles, but also in Tokyo. In 1965 Francis started a series of paintings that featured large areas of open canvas, minimal color and strong line. His work evolved further after he began intensive Jungian analysis with Dr. James Kirsch in 1971 and began paying careful attention to his dreams and the unconscious images they suggested.

Francis’ works of the early 1970s have been referred to as Fresh Air pictures. Created by adding pools, drips and splatters of color to wet bands of paint applied with a roller, these works re-asserted the artist’s interest in color. By 1973–1974 many of Francis’ paintings featured a formal grid or matrix made up of crossing tracks of color. Many of these matrix works were large in scale, measuring up to twenty feet long. After 1980 the formal structure of the grid gradually disappeared from Francis’ work. He was extremely active as a printmaker, creating works in Santa Monica at the Litho Shop, which Francis owned.

Francis was a founding trustee of Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and his paintings can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others. During the last year of his life, suffering from prostate cancer and unable to paint with his right hand after a fall, in a final burst of energy he used his left hand to complete a dazzling series of about 150 small paintings before he died. He died in Santa Monica and was buried in Olema, in Marin County, California.

Source: ArtNet, Wikipedia