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Sam Francis was born in San Mateo,
California in 1923. He entered the University of
California at Berkeley as botany major, but switched
to medicine before leaving in 1943 to join the Army
Air Corps. During his time in the military he suffered
injuries that led to spinal tuberculosis, and began
to paint during his period of recovery. Eventually
he returned to UC Berkeley to earn his Bachelors
and Masters degree in painting and art history in
1949.
Francis’ career began in
Paris in the 1950’s.
His work from this period is airy and light-filled;
influenced by Japanese painting, he opened up an
empty space in the middle of the canvas and enlarged
the scale of his works. Francis’ paintings
during the 1960’s began to emphasize the edges
of the canvas. During this time he also worked in
watercolor and was largely responsible for the revival
of color lithography. By the early 1970’s his
paintings became more minimal and abstract, and subsequent
periods of the 70’s and 80’s are more
structured and heavy. Throughout his career he traveled
extensively, working and exhibiting in Tokyo, Switzerland,
Paris and the United States. In 1962 he settled in
Santa Monica, CA and established a lithography workshop
there. Sam Francis holds a place in art history as
the youngest of the first generation of abstract
expressionists.
Sometimes considered a second-generation
Abstract Expressionist, Francis’ work of the
1950’s
and 1960’s was abstract, luminous and painterly
rather than gestural. Influenced by the works of
Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, Francis’ “signature” paintings
of the early 1950’s are overlays of serial
but asymmetrical biomorphic forms saturated with
color. In the mid-1950’s, Francis began to
paint fields of various sized clusters of cell-like
shapes usually in blue, yellow, and red on a white
ground. By the late 1950’s Francis concentrated
on large mural sized works dominated by white and
bordered by colorful clusters of forms. This remained
his vocabulary throughout his career but by the 1970’s
and 1980’s a greater degree of structure emerged.
In addition to monumental and easel-size paintings
he produced a significant oeuvre of works on paper
and prints. Sam Francis died in 1994.
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