Sam Francis Contemporary Art

Color lithograph on Rives BFK, 1975 37 x27 inches,full margins, Signed and numbered 10/30 in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by The Litho Shop Inc. ,Santa Monica,with...

Sam Francis (1923 San Mateo - 1994 Santa Monica) "Jubilee" color lithograph, created 1964, edition of 50 copies, signed, numbered and dated, Ex.: e.a. Dimensions: 50.5 x 65.5 cm Sam Francis was an American painter and graphic artist. His work is classified as Abstract Expressionism or Color Field Painting Sam Francis is one of the most important American artists, born in San Mateo (California) in 1923, died in Santa Monica in 1994. After a plane crash during his service in the US Air Force, he began painting in 1944 during his convalescence and then studied under David Park at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. His early abstractions, which are still reminiscent of Clyfford Still and Jackson Pollock, show spontaneous painterly gestures that led to the typically American "all over" structure: the canvas is completely covered with dots, spots, marks and other traces of the painter's brush. When Francis was in Paris from 1950 to 1957, he abandoned color and broke new ground with works such as "White Painting" (1950). But as early as the summer of 1951 in the south of France, he used pink and red again, only to return to the full palette later on. Sometimes he used all the colors and their variations in tone, sometimes he let one color dominate, as in "Blue Balls" (1960). Although Francis has been associated with Color Field painting, this must be seen as an aid to classification, to help one come to terms with a highly original visual language. When "fields" appear in Francis' work, they are almost never (if ever) color fields. Instead, they have an interplay of foreground and background. They often create depth, which makes the canvas more of a "color space". It is typical of Sam Francis' pictorial strategies that he often leaves the center of the picture free...

Untitled, 1981, unique embossed monotype print on handmade paper. Created at the Institute of Experimental Printmaking by lauded American artist, Sam Francis (1923-1994). The Sam Fra...