.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This work is identified with the interim identification number of SF58-066 in consideration for the forthcoming Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Unique Works on Paper. This information is subject to change as scholarship continues by the Sam Francis Foundation.
Color was always a major focal point in the work of Sam Francis and in creating abstract narratives that concerned suspension and levitation, Francis would challenge the conventional perception of color and space. In his 1958 work, Untitled, he embodies his career forte by using watercolor and gouache to create a sparse, yet gentile color field and confronts it with an endless white open space. The surface is activated by drips and splashes of pigment over the white field, while the mass of yellow, blue, red and orange paint bursts with internal energy. While it’s the color that draws the eye of the viewer, it was the confrontation with white that would entice Francis. In Untitled, there is a clear drive for empty and open space and it is the spontaneously painted and splattered mass of color that disrupts it. With its asymmetrical breakup, Untiled challenges the rules of divided space while showing an advancement in Francis’ artistic ideology.
An important figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement, Francis approached the act of painting in a new way. He would make controlled surface interventions by splattering and dripping the paint and unlike the Abstract Expressionists before him, he allowed acrylic and oil to coexist by pairing them against each other and sometimes with each other. Francis also looked at color in a different way than his peers, by using it for its meaning and power. He would use highly pigmented and saturated colors, saying that “color is light on fire, each color is the result of burning, for each substance burns with a particular color (S. Francis, quoted in J. Butterfield, ‘The Other Side of Wonder’, Sam Francis: Works On Paper, New York, 1979).
After receiving his master’s degree in 1950, Francis moved to Paris in order to gain influence from the rich culture and extensive artistic tradition. Upon arrival, he went to study at Fernand Leger’s academy, where he became heavily influenced by Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Claude Monet. But while those artists focused on figuration and objects permeable to air, Francis focused on the air itself by avoiding naturalistic space and bringing color to a surface that could infinitely expand.
This practice is evident in the gouaches and watercolors Francis painted in the late 1950’s in Tokyo, Paris and New York. While displaying his inventive use of space, they also display Francis’s unique use of color. Untitled represents this new approach with its mixture of warm and cool colors leaking into the infinite white space, giving insight to the future of Francis’s career.
Color was always a major focal point in the work of Sam Francis and in creating abstract narratives that concerned suspension and levitation, Francis would challenge the conventional perception of color and space. In his 1958 work, Untitled, he embodies his career forte by using watercolor and gouache to create a sparse, yet gentile color field and confronts it with an endless white open space. The surface is activated by drips and splashes of pigment over the white field, while the mass of yellow, blue, red and orange paint bursts with internal energy. While it’s the color that draws the eye of the viewer, it was the confrontation with white that would entice Francis. In Untitled, there is a clear drive for empty and open space and it is the spontaneously painted and splattered mass of color that disrupts it. With its asymmetrical breakup, Untiled challenges the rules of divided space while showing an advancement in Francis’ artistic ideology.
An important figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement, Francis approached the act of painting in a new way. He would make controlled surface interventions by splattering and dripping the paint and unlike the Abstract Expressionists before him, he allowed acrylic and oil to coexist by pairing them against each other and sometimes with each other. Francis also looked at color in a different way than his peers, by using it for its meaning and power. He would use highly pigmented and saturated colors, saying that “color is light on fire, each color is the result of burning, for each substance burns with a particular color (S. Francis, quoted in J. Butterfield, ‘The Other Side of Wonder’, Sam Francis: Works On Paper, New York, 1979).
After receiving his master’s degree in 1950, Francis moved to Paris in order to gain influence from the rich culture and extensive artistic tradition. Upon arrival, he went to study at Fernand Leger’s academy, where he became heavily influenced by Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Claude Monet. But while those artists focused on figuration and objects permeable to air, Francis focused on the air itself by avoiding naturalistic space and bringing color to a surface that could infinitely expand.
This practice is evident in the gouaches and watercolors Francis painted in the late 1950’s in Tokyo, Paris and New York. While displaying his inventive use of space, they also display Francis’s unique use of color. Untitled represents this new approach with its mixture of warm and cool colors leaking into the infinite white space, giving insight to the future of Francis’s career.