Sam Francis :

If it can be said that the exiled elite of the 1920s was made up of writers, one must conclude that those having crossed the Atlantic in the fifties were essentially artists. Sam Francis was one of these. He would find material comfort in France, thanks to "GI Bill" aid, offering America on a platter to new artists. In Paris, after the horrors of the war, artists wanted to escape from reality; abstraction triumphed.

Sam arrived in France in 1950 after graduating from the San Francisco School of Fine Arts. He quickly bonded with other American artists: Joan Mitchell, Riopelle, Shirley Jaff, James Bishop, Ellsworth Kelly... Influenced by Bonnard, Sam Francis created his own style: a space where emptiness has been subtly shaped and where light is studied. He is, without a doubt, the most French of all American painters.

A style of painting referred to as Lyric Abstraction which uses dripping; a bit of Pollock without all the violence of Action Painting. Sam Francis was drawn to the concept of Japanese Zen where students are subjected to a certain mental discipline based on concentration.

With nothing less than genius, Sam Francis brings us face to face with Monet's obsessive painting of his famous "water lilies" and his "Marines de Turner".

His wide-open spaces dotted with color are easily identifiable and make this painter, who still enjoys the highest of ratings, a master of colors.

Acrylic on paper
29,1 x 40,2 in (74 x 102 cm)