Biography

One of the twentieth century’s most profound Abstract Expressionists, American artist Sam Francis (1923-1994) is noted as one of the first post-World War II painters to develop an international reputation. Francis created thousands of paintings as well as works on paper, prints and monotypes, housed in major museum collections and institutions around the world. Regarded as one of the leading interpreters of color and light, his work holds references to New York abstract expressionism, color field painting, Chinese and Japanese art, French impressionism and his own Bay Area roots.

Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California, in 1923. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1943, after studying medicine and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, but started painting as a form of therapy after a plane accident forced him to spend a long time in hospital. From 1945 to 1946, he studied painting at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, and in 1947 produced his first abstract composition. He spent the following two years studying art history at the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated with an M. A. in Literary Studies.
In 1950 he moved to Paris and two years later had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie du Dragon. At that time his style was deeply affected by Art Informel and by the Abstract Expressionist works of Jackson Pollock. In 1955 he participated in his first museum exhibition, presenting seven paintings at Tendances Actuelles at the Kunsthalle of Berne. The following year he took part in the exhibition Twelve Americans at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1957 he spent some time in Mexico, New York, and Japan: there he had a significant impact on his artistic development, and this is clearly seen in the incorporation of Oriental painting techniques in his work of the time, such as the use of thin layers of paint and large blank areas.
In 1959 Francis took part in Documenta II, Kassel (Germany), and the São Paulo Bienal (Brasil). In 1961, despite falling ill and spending a long time in a hospital in Berne, he participated in the exhibitions Arte e Contemplazione (Art and Contemplation) at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice (Italy), and Abstract Expressionists and Imaginists at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Though known primarily as a painter, he was also a sculptor and printmaker, producing a new series of color lithographs in 1963. The artwork Untitled, dated 1978, is a good example of his research, merging the color and the marks in a great composition where the casuality conflicts with the rationality, in an endless battleground. In 1984 he founded Lapis Press, a famous publishing house specializing in visual arts and philosophy. His work is held by many public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo.

Not only are Francis’s paintings valued historically for their aesthetic vision, but his inquisitive mind and spirit have solidified Francis’s legacy as a contemporary renaissance man. His interest in the creative process was expansive and synergistic – art, technology, psychology, science, medicine, and protecting the environment (before it became a movement). He was an early investor in research to find creative solutions to our dependence on non-renewable energy sources and cures for AIDs. In each of these realms, he explored the nature of creativity – what stimulates it, the importance of testing new ideas through experimentation as well as the roles of imagination, intuition and knowledge.