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Concept
Sam Francis
Summary
Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker.
Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California, the son of Katherine Lewis Francis and Samuel Augustus Francis Sr. The death of his mother in 1935, who had encouraged his interest in music affected him deeply, but he later developed a strong bond with his stepmother, Virginia Peterson Francis. He attended San Mateo High School in the early 1940s.
Francis served in the United States Air Force during World War II. In 1944, while in the Air Corps he was diagnosed with Spinal Tuberculosis. He was in the hospital for several years, and it was while there, after being visited by artist David Park in 1945, that he began to paint. Once out of the hospital he returned to Berkeley, this time to study art. He received both his BA degree (1949) and MA degree (1950) in Art from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied botany, medicine, and psychology.
Francis was initially influenced by the work of abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and Clyfford Still. His loose style was most influenced by the work of Jackson Pollock. He later became loosely associated with the second generation of abstract expressionists, including Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler, who were increasingly interested in the expressive use of color. But Francis never fit neatly into any school of art. He charted his own trajectory as one of the first global artists working around the world.
He spent the 1950s in Paris, having his first exhibition there at the Galerie Nina Dausset in 1952. While in Paris he became associated with Tachisme, and had his work championed by art critics Michel Tapié and Claude Duthuit ( the son-in-law of the painter Henri Matisse).
Between 1950 and 1958 Francis spent time and painted in Paris, the south of France, Tokyo, Mexico City, Bern and New York. His artistic development was affected by his exposure to French modern painting, Asian culture and Zen Buddhism in particular.
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