Sam Francis was an American painter and printmaker who was prominent among the group of painters known as the second generation of Abstract Expressionists. He has created thousands of paintings as well as works on paper, prints, monotypes and even sculptures, which brought him a strong, long-lasting international reputation.
Background
Sam Francis was born on June 25, 1923, in San Mateo, California, United States, to Katherine and Samuel Francis. As a child, he was initially interested in music and his love for visual arts hasn’t developed until his later years. His younger brother, George, was born in 1926. Tragedy struck the family in 1935, when Katherine died.
Education
Before obtaining his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in natural sciences, Francis has served in the United States Air Force, but eventually he got injured during test flights. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Francis has graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. After the graduation, he has moved to Paris and quickly earned the reputation of the most promising American painter in Paris. This period was a transformative era of his life. He was exploring the painters of the great masters – for example, he immersed himself deeply in a study of Monet’s "Water Lilies." In the next four decades, Francis has traveled lots and maintained a few studios – in Bern, Tokyo, Mexico City, and his native California.
Initially, Francis was influenced by the works of abstract expressionists, such as Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. However, his influences got changed later and he became associated with the second generation of abstract expressionists, whose main representatives were Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler. This second generation was notably interested in the expressive use of color. Between 1950 and 1958, Francis was spending his time between the south of France, Tokyo, Mexico City, Bern, and the United States and he picked up various artistic influences from these cities and countries. His development was mostly affected by his exposure to French modern painting and Zen Buddhism in Japan.
His works from the 1950s went through an exciting transformation consisting of several stages. Everything began with monochromatic abstractions and it was followed by lively colored murals and paintings that feature large areas of negative space. After his 1953 painting "Big Red" was featured in the 1956 exhibition Twelve Artists at MOMA in New York, Francis started to gain an international recognition. He painted large murals for the Kunsthalle in Basel in 1956 and for the Chase Manhattan Bank in 1959. Following this success, in the early 60s, he created a few series of works, including his famous "Blue Balls" series. These paintings consisting of predominantly round forms and drips and even though the work is entirely abstract, it referenced the pain that artist suffered in 1961 due to his renal tuberculosis.
Next stage in his career was "Fresh Air" series from the early 70s. These pieces were created by adding drips and splatters of color to wet paints applied with a roller. Until 1974, most of Francis’ paintings had a formal grid or matrix made up of crossing pieces of color. Some of these grid-works were really large, up to twenty feet long. This matrix structure has gradually disappeared from Francis’ work after the 1980s. In addition to dedication to canvas-based works, Francis was also known as a printmaker who made numerous etchings, lithographs, and monotypes.
Francis has also produced a number of sculptures and sculpture drawings. Many of these drawings were made in Japan and inspired by simple classical forms. They combine rings and cones, which rest on squares and rectangular forms or float on the paper, seemingly weightless. These sculpture drawings express a certain degree of dynamics, because of the way how Francis has arranged them on the white paper. In 1966, these works were exhibited in Tokyo at the Minami Gallery and a year later at the San Francisco Museum. The three-dimensional works that Francis started making in Japan actually stayed with him after the sixties as well.
In 1979, Francis decided to finally cast some of his drawings, to convert them into three-dimensional works. the sculpture. The geometric forms of his sculptures seem very dynamic and connected to each other. The open spaces he often used, inspired by the teachings of Zen Buddhism, create a clean energy which is emphasized by the chromed steel and its light-reflecting properties.
During his frequent travels, Sam Francis was exposed to many styles, artistic techniques, and cultural influences, which has speeded up his own development. Francis was known to possess a lyrical and gestural abilities which enabled him to capture, in a very personalized way, brilliance, energy and striking power of colors. His paintings underline his love of literature, music, and science and his emotions had a surprisingly wide range. During his lifetime, Francis’ work was featured in 113 solo exhibitions in various museums and galleries, with the additional 90 solo exhibits after 1994.
Around the end of his life, Francis was suffering from prostate cancer and he couldn’t neither paint nor do any editing with his right hand after an injury. However, using the last bits of energy, he has completed an amazing series of 150 small paintings before he died in Santa Monica. He was buried in Olema, in Marin County of California.
His interest in the creative processes was synergistic – he aimed at addressing not only artistic issues, but also technology, psychology, science, and medicine through his projects.
Quotations:
“Painting is about the beauty of space and the power of containment.”
Membership
In 1984, he has founded The Lapis Press group, with the objective to make unusual texts in visually appealing formats. In 1991, he was elected as an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design.
Personality
Francis was a very curious young man interested not only in visual arts, but also in botany, medicine, and psychology.
Quotes from others about the person
His works are infused with universal concepts in their balance between the physical and the spiritual, the material and the immaterial, mind and body, man and nature. His paintings reveal themselves through their silence with areas of white space and light-filled voids for meditation and contemplation.
Interests
Artists
Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still
Connections
Francis had many relationships during his life and was married 5 times. His first wife was his high school sweetheart, named Vera Miller. The pair were married during his hospitalization in 1947 and they divorced in 1952. His second wife was an American painter named Muriel Goodwin. The pair were together from 1950 - 1959. Afterwards, Francis married Japanese abstract painter Teruko Yokoi. Yokoi was bron in Tsushima, Japan and studied at the California School of Fine Art. Yokoi has exhibited at many museums around the world and has two museums named after her in Japan. Yokoi and Francis had a daughter together named Kayo. After their divorce, Francis married Mako Idemitsu. The couple met because her father was an art collector, which is how she became familiar with Sam Francis. They lived in the United States until 1973 when they moved to Japan. Francis returned to the US after 1974, but Idemitsu remained and the two subsequently divorced. They had two children, Osamu and Shingo. Francis then Margaret Smith, with whom he had a son, Augustus.