Francis, Sam.
Works of the artist.
Sam Francis (San Mateo, 1923 - Santa Monica, 1994) contributed significantly to the international recognition of the new American painting of the 1950s. For four decades, his presence in Europe and Asia, as well as in his native country, testified to the uninterrupted vitality of American art. [+]
Francis, Sam
Sam Francis (San Mateo, 1923 - Santa Monica, 1994) was an American painter and graphic artist.
He studied botany, medicine and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley from 1941 to 1943, until he was called to serve for the United States Air Force during World War II (1943-1945).
After crashing during a test flight, he was hospitalized for several years. Howevever, he took that time to paint per the request of his friend David Parks, a professor at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts. Once out of the hospital he returned to Berkeley, but this time to study fine arts. He completed his degree in painting and art history in two years (1948-1950).
Francis's painting style during the 1940s was dominated by blotches of colour in the form of cells, using lightened oil or acrylic paint.
He was initially influenced by the work of the Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and Clyfford Still. He spent the 1950s in Paris, where he held his first exhibition in 1952 at the Galerie Nida Dausset. During his time there, he became involved with Tachism, while his various travels took him to Italy, Mexico, India, Thailand and Hong Kong. He later spent some time in Japan, where he learned a lot about Buddhism.
Francis returned to California in the 1960s and continued to paint in Los Angeles. The last three decades of his career, consisted of producing large canvases in the style of Abstract Expressionism, revealing a deep study of color.
Nowadays, Francis is best known for his large-scale wall paintings, and considered one of the leading figures of American action painting.
Francis's work can be seen in New York at both the MOMA and the Guggenheim, as well as at the Tate Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Kunstahaus in Zurich, among others.
